15 Jan 2019
The government has appointed Keith Williams as the chair of the biggest review of our railways since privatisation began. This is your chance to have your say over the future of our railway.
You haven't been asked your opinion on privatisation since 1994! Here's your chance:
Comment below to sign this letter and tell Keith why you want to see public ownership of the railways.
Dear Keith Williams,
Our railways are clearly not currently fit for purpose.
Train travel has never been so popular. But the service passengers receive is deteriorating. We've seen repeated delays and cancellations across the network. Trains are overcrowded. Rail fares continue to spiral up and up. Train companies have failed to invest in new infrastructure. Our railways are broken.
We believe that public ownership would help solve these problems - so we're really happy to hear that you've promised to keep public ownership on the table in your review.
By taking private companies out of the rail network, we can:
- Remove shareholder profits from the system and reduce costs.
- Use these savings to fund reduced fares, and a rail service run for people, not profit.
By putting the public at the heart of our railways, we can:
- Ensure they get the investment they desperately need.
- Use this investment to improve services, reduce delays, and upgrade the rolling stock.
76% of the public agree, and we want to see our railways in public hands.
Yours,
The public.
Comment below - Why do you want public ownership of your railways?
Comments
Peter Louch 6 years ago
Privatised companies have failed completely to make a decent job of running the railways.I an old enough to have spent many hours on British Rail.Not a problem at all.
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Denise Taylor-Roome 6 years ago
Ever since private companies took over the running of the British Rail Network, the interests of shareholders has taken precedence over passengers. Also, as different companies have been responsible for areas of Britain, its created problems for Network Rail to maintain the infrastructure. My nearest main line is the East Coast, and whenever its been taken back into public ownership its been more efficient, and profitable, then when run by a private franchise.
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Peter Jacques 6 years ago
Public ownership is a must as we know it works. We must continue improving our railways systems as an efficient, comfortable alternative to our overcrowded roads with their pollution. We need railways in every region to be fit for purpose.
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David McInosh 6 years ago
Could not agree more! In Northen England and Wales (were the Railways were born), services are a nightmare! with the only change being that the price keeps rising.
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Alison Legge 6 years ago
In the days before privatisation I used to commute to London. Whilst the service was not perfect for the most part it was reliable. Since it's been privatised the service has considerably deteriorated with profits going to share holders and not the service. Different companies mean ticketing has become a nightmare especially for cross country travel. We need a comprehensive overhaul of the service and for that to happen it needs to be back in public ownership along with increased investment. Other countries invest in their railways we need to do the same.
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Michael Denholm 6 years ago
The shysters, spivs and speculators have taken over. The 'Big Four' outsourcing and "accountancy" firms -plus many others- would'nt have given British Rail a second glance. They do now, eyeing profit and solely profit. Civil engineering, one once 'in house' professional railway activity now has more contractors (each with their own bureacracy)'creaming'mouth-watering fees from an inept Government.
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Brenda 6 years ago
Totally agree with every comment made - the question then remains - Are Government MinistersLiving in the Real World? No, they never needed to and continue to cream off the best of Britain to line the pockets of themselves and their donors and their friends and relations. That’s why Leaving Europe got so many votes, although not mine, but I can understand why we are currently in chaos so why can’t the government. Perhaps it’s because they have been allowed to ‘sell the family silver’ and got away with it. Remember that quote was from an elder Conservative statesman!
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Alan parker 6 years ago
WHAT COMPETION do we get on the railways? None on many routes and many stations. Reliability quote by a frequent traveller on LNER (Virgin) . Trains ok early morning and then break downs at the end of the day. Cross counrtry trains like noisy old buses with poor seating. Ticketing a nightmare on line. Why not a swipe card system at all stations like london using credit or debit cards card. Why waste paper with multiple ticket for one journey???? And a bar code on ticket for use when checking?
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Sally Stone 6 years ago
The current price of train travel has priced my family out of using the train.
We always had a family railcard but as our kids have got older, thats not an option for us anymore.
We would be much better off with publicly owned transport.
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RadFax 6 years ago
Make the profits go to the people
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Prue Stothard 6 years ago
Agree with any comments in favour of public ownership. Publicly owned British Rail ran on time, had simple pricing, were more efficient in terms of scale, co-ordinated the cross country train times, were safer, more comfortable and reinvested surpluses into the stock and infrastructure. What's not to like??
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Peter Canham 6 years ago
If privatisation was truly 'private' the companies would sink or swim, depending on their efficiency. What we actually have is companies who mismanage and then whine to the government for huge amounts of funding to appease shareholders, at the public's expense, which would benefit the country more if it was spent on the NHS, for example.
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Joan Stewart 6 years ago
Totally agree that privatisation is a myth, and is more efficient. If market forces were applied, these so-called private operators would go under. Instead they are bailed out using public funds that are much needed to prevent public services from being under-resourced. It's time to reclaim our railways and have the efficient service that the travelling public deserve.
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Phil Fletcher 6 years ago
When the East Coast Line was in private hands, it was actually earning money.
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Vivien Kitteringham 6 years ago
Having rail services predominately in public ownership allows them to be more responsive to the needs of passengers. Infrastructure needs to be in public hands to avoid becoming a cash cow exploiting the fact that people need these services.
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Christine June Bird 6 years ago
The Trains and the buses should be owned by all of us they are an essential part of our lives.
The added bonus will be people driving their cars less to help with carbon emissions provided the service
is better maintained which i believe it will be in public ownership with reasonable prices.
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Cecily Jarvis 6 years ago
Rail travel was never better in my experience than when the east coast line was in public ownership. We made a point of using East Coast in fact because the service and the staff were so good. It was a real pleasure to travel that way. Could it be that without shareholders creaming off the profits, we had a taste of proper national infrastructure running for the benefit of its customers?
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Lesley Aers 6 years ago
Absolutely right that East Coast were the best of the five different companies that have run the line since privatisation. Then the Tories decided the line had to be privatised again and gave the franchise to Virgin - who were annoyed they didn't make enough profit and walked away. They had made a stupid bid. When will the Tories accept their system doesn't work?
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Averil Lamont 6 years ago
Public ownership would allow the railways to be run as an integrated service with a coherent and affordable fare structure, with the emphasis on public service not profit.
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Sarah Lasenby 6 years ago
I understand that railway systems all over the world usually require Government support just as the private franchises have had. If the railways were renationalised there would be less confusion and may be we would pay less too. Certainly no public money would go to shareholders.
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Ric Campbell 6 years ago
I also remember how British Rail was, and spent many happy hours on the network. The thing is there is a fundamental difference between public service and private profit. Also, our fragmented rail network can, and indeed has been flogged of to all and sundry to do as they please, with, and of course if it all goes pear shaped they just walk away, leaving the good old public to pick up the bill, as with the East coast line. I have no rosy glasses, and I accept there were problems with BR, but a lot of these were down to the system as a whole being deliberately run down and under funded, a bit like the NHS is now, something else that will be flogged of to business if we don't stand up and be counted.
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Justin MacKenzie 6 years ago
Public ownership means that the profits go back into maintaining the rail system overall, rather than lining the pockets of those wealthy enough to purchase shares and then sit back letting their financially advantaged position continue to come in. What kind of society is it that thinks that this is acceptable?
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Margaret Reeves 6 years ago
A good rail service benefits travelers and the environment by getting cars off the roads. Privatizing rail companies has not resulted in a better service, far from it! Returning it to public ownership where the users, not the shareholders, are the priority, can only be for the general good.
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Brian Wilkinson 6 years ago
Chris Gatling is a dangerous man. His record as a minister in several departments is lamentable.
After he privatised Probation Services the detrimental effect has now been evidenced as in this link :
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/12/chris-grayling-probation-reforms-serious-crimes-committed-on-parole-soar
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MRS MARJORIE LEWIS 6 years ago
The Government seems quite happy to see our railways run by companies owned by foreign governments but not our own. It is time we took back control of our railways and stopped filling the coffers of foreign governments who make vast profits at our expense. Time to bring the railways back into British public ownership, whatever the Brexit outcome.
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Commonsense 6 years ago
Enabling people to use high quality, sensibly-priced public transport for work, for leisure, for commerce, etc, is a PUBLIC SERVICE. As such, we must subsidize it. Requiring profit from running a public service has obvious negative effects.
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Jennifer Budden 6 years ago
The fragmentation of the railways and the focus on competition has meant that the service is focused not on the needs of its passengers for the 21st century but other internal things: It turns in on itself, spends more time trying to work its way through procedures and contractual obligations rather than running a decent service and also is focused on profit and shareholder value rather than customer service in terms of reliability of trains, and pride in the safety and operation of the service. Competition obviously doesn't work - look at all the times the franchises have been handed back. Tax payers money is still required. Profits go to foreign state owned trains. What we need is a properly funded integrated system which works for passengers. British Rail was starved of funds. Its management meant it was constantly arguing with the unions. We need a regional structure so that no area of the UK is ignored - like now in SW where if the Dawlish line goes down we are all cut off. With climate change we need our railways to run quickly and efficiently with adequate staffing. Railways are part of national infrastructure. They benefit all of us so the idea that passengers should bear the brunt of the costs is nonsense.
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Christine Matkin 6 years ago
I want public ownership but there must be safeguards if public money is being spent it has to be distributed fairly and not all centred on Lendon and the South East. The East coast line running between Newcastle and Darlington needs rolling stock to be upgraded with faster more comfotable trains
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Sylvia Willmot 6 years ago
Why are we using companies who have to hand out dividends to shareholders when in reality alot of the money collected could be used to improve the rolling stock and the services provided. Plus this Government are subsidising these companies. It's time things in this country benefited this country and the people in it instead of companies from other countries.
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Ben Williams 6 years ago
For a privatised system to work there needs to be an effective competition mechanism. If you need to travel by rail there is only one track going where you want to go. Without any real competition in the market you end up with either a private monopoly or a public monopoly. At least with a public monopoly the profits and investments are staying in the public sphere and there are democratic mechanisms of accountability, rather than profits and subsidies being skimmed off to stuff the pockets of totally unaccountable millionaires.
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Janet Hornby 6 years ago
It seems that profits and dividends are more important than passengers. Passengers have had a dreadful year of cancellations and delays and now higher fares. Please let's run the railways in the public interest.
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Susie West 6 years ago
National transport is too important to be left to private interests, and should be run in a fully accountable way with a Minister who accepts responsibility for success and failures.
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Peter Lister 6 years ago
I used the East Coast service during its time under government control and it was a great service with everything earned being used to support the railway itself - not the shareholders. Public ownership for all rail services can enable better integration and efficiency. Please consider the wishes of the people!
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Prof P Easen 6 years ago
I agree with Peter. Over the years I travelled from Newcastle to London on a frequent basis. When National Express East Coast gave up the contract and the franchise reverted to public ownership the standards and service improved considerably. Not only that but it made a 'profit' for the Government. The Government, however,insisted on putting the franchise back into the private sector, this time with Virgin East Coast. Almost immediately the quality of the service deteriorated. Then Virgin claimed that it would lose money over the life of the franchise and were allowed to walk away. The chaotic nature of the structure and organisation of our national rail service is inefficient but appears to persist for ideological reasons. This Review is a chance to remedy this.
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Pamela Mason 6 years ago
Publicly owned East coast was the best run train company in the era of privatisation. Other European countries make money out of our railways. It should be a public service, as without people travelling by train (and bus and bicycle), the whole country would be grid locked
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Mary M 6 years ago
I agree. The Easr Coast Service ran well when it was under public ownership. It makes sense for profits to be used to improve the service. It is less cost effective to be taking money out of the service for private profit. We need a railway that is a public service that meets the transport needs of the country and helps the environment. I believe that this would be best achieved by public ownership.
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Ian Dawson 6 years ago
I agree. East Coast is my 'local' train company. In the 18 years I have been using it, it has always been the case that service has deteriorated when privatised and improved again when in public ownership. Privatisation has failed 3 times during those 18 years. £millions must have been spent (syn. wasted) 're-imaging' the operation every time changes have taken place, and, I believe, more money had gone into the treasury each year it has been under public ownership.
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Ian Dawson 6 years ago
The fragmentation of the railways makes travel more difficult and far less attractive to the user. As an example - for one of my more frequent journeys there are 4, yes 4, different operators on the route providing a reasonably frequent service between them. I frequently find that one of them has a special offer on fares, but if I choose to pay that fare I am limited to that operator whose trains are not very frequent. It is difficult to choose. A single operator with a single fare structure would be far more sensible and would save overall costs - which could be spent on real improvements to the whole rail system instead.
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Penny Johnson 6 years ago
The railways are a public service, and profits should be used to improve the service, not go to private companies or foreign organisations like DB. Private companies have demonstrated that they cannot run the railways efficiently or provide an adequate service. When the east coast line was taken into public ownership, the service improved.
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Eileen Procter 6 years ago
I absolutely agree with you! These public services are a vital part of our infrastructure and should not be source of profit for shareholders.
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Anne Stainrod 6 years ago
Should never have gone out of public ownership. Private ownership only cares about lining their own pockets and that of their shareholders. Its a total disgrace that the public should bail out companies that make a total mess of running the railways. Return all utilities back to the public. It is the public that pay out the money to them so we would receive the benefits in better services all round.
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Linda Byford 6 years ago
Totally agree with you.
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Mardi Swift-Marah 6 years ago
No trains in many areas
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Chris Williams 6 years ago
I work on the railways and sadly it is not a service I am proud of. I am forever apologising to passengers for increased fares but no change in service, trains, quality,punctuality etc. Our trains haven't even got plug sockets on them in this day and age. We have gone from having a railway that was the envy of the world to a fragmented and disjointed archaic railway that is the laughing stock of Europe.
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Mr Johnson 6 years ago
Great comment and 100% agreement!
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Anna Bentinck 6 years ago
I agree. The railways are expensive and a shambles. I can remember when we always used the trains. Now we drive. Much more polluting.
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Tom Killick 6 years ago
Running the railways for profit has been a disaster - they need to revert to being a public service.
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Carol Stevens 6 years ago
Just like everything else sold off by the Tories. Every single one is a disaster. All utilities and the NHS need to be publicly owned. Shareholder profits shoud not be the prime concern.
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Chris hoy 6 years ago
I agree that privatisation has been a disaster. In fact although i love to travel on trains i have taken to the coach for a more reliable and cheaper form of transport
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Judith Aston 6 years ago
Money is being wasted, paying shareholders dividends when the service desperately needs investment.
Public ownership would ensure that any all profits are invested back into the rail system, to the benefit of us all.
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Margaret 6 years ago
Put railways back in to public ownership. Get rid of all the sesperate segments and reorganise. The current tendering out different parts to different for profit companies has never worked for the good of travellers, just shareholders profits margins.
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Peter PHILIPS 6 years ago
Get rid of all the separate segments and reorganise. The current tendering process has never worked for the good of travellers, just shareholders profits margins. The North Eastern Line is an excellent example of the failure of tendering process and the public purse has to pick up the bill each time it fails.
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Martin Fricker 6 years ago
The private rail experiment has failed! It is time to bring the whole system back where it belongs. Under PUBLIC ownership!!!
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JF 6 years ago
Because Public transport should be indeed public and because public transport must be improved and given priority if we are to combat climate change.
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Meg Grinnell 6 years ago
Exactly. If public transport was reasonably priced and reliable it would take many thousands of polluting cars off our roads.
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James Brant 6 years ago
The taxpayer is already paying for the infrastructure. We may as well take over the whole thing.
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Claire Fewster 6 years ago
Public transport should be accessible to all, and create access for all - it doesn’t. Run by the elite at extortionate profit for those who can afford it. If other European countries can lead the way, then so should we.
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Graham 6 years ago
Let’s have a railway for the people not for shareholders profits any money made should be put back into the railways and as I say not to shareholders. Too many vital public services are being privatised for profit ignoring the public needs.
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Nigel Bryant 6 years ago
It's time to realise that privatisation was a failed experiment and return the railways to public ownership. There are far too many delays and cancellations across the network. Trains are overcrowded. Rail fares continue to increase at a high rate while the service declines. Train companies have failed to invest in new infrastructure.
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Tracey Hart 6 years ago
Public transport is an essential service and should be publicly owned to ensure it provides a comprehensive and reliable mode of transport. Running the railways for the profit of shareholders is contrary to this core function. Public transport should be available at affordable cost to enc0ourage individuals to use rail instead of their cars, which its counter-productive in our battle against rapid climate change.
Privatisation has failed - it's time to change it.
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Johanna Carrie 6 years ago
I strongly support the push to have the railways back in public ownership. I met some RMT members at Waverly Station Edinburgh. It was encouraging that the Union supports this too.
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Margaret Thomas 6 years ago
Railways need to be renationalised. My town, Ashington, once known as the biggest mining village in the world suffered hugely with the closure of the mines. One thing which might have eased the economic and unemployment issues would have been the reopening of our railway line. People have campaigned vigorously for this but so far it hasn't happened. Public ownership, with the needs of the public being put before private profit and greed might see this being achieved.
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Andrea Marsden 6 years ago
The railway situation in the NW has been dire for over a year with people ceasing to use trains and resorting to cars. The whole of Manchester is gridlocked due to the increased motor transport. This needs to be resolved by taking railways back into public ownership now.
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Carole Bullock 6 years ago
privatised railways have not been good for anyone except the shareholders. we need them publicly owned again.
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adrian graham 6 years ago
Keep the railways in the public realm to remove shareholder profit from the system and reduce costs overall .
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Keith Baker 6 years ago
The fiasco of many of the current privately owned railways are evidence themselves at how poor the privatised systems are currently operating especially in the north and south-east. The East Coast Mainline is a classic example - this railway has been in several different private hands and each time they have had high prices very poor service with many customer complaints. When taken back into government hands within a short while efficiency improves and customer complaints more than halved. The last owner being a Virgin and Arriva consortium, that too after a few years failed as they could not make sufficient profit and complaints soared. If those two companies can't make it work, no-one can. However back in state hands it is running well, making a profit and complaints are low. It is ironic that some of our railways are owned by foreign state run railways and making profits to go back to Germany or Italy. I believe we need to take railways back into public control where every penny of profit is put back into improvements.
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Nicholas Thorn 6 years ago
The current system offers the worst of both worlds. High levels of subsidy yet high fares. Why cannot governments subsidise passengers and not greedy companies? For how much longer must we pay astronomical fares for a third-rate service?
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David Callow 6 years ago
The private companies running the rail service have been a dismal failure. They serve to line the pockets of shareholders rather than supplying an efficient and economical service for commuters.
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Anthony E Thomas 6 years ago
Because privatisation is an ideological "approach" that solves nothing. Because recent returns to public ownership of failed railway privatisations have been successful. Because there is no evidence that private ownership does more than enrich directors, Because...
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David Baron 6 years ago
Railways are a vital part of helping to reduce our carbon footprint yet they are being run for profit. We need railways back in public ownership to reduce fares and increase investment.
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Chris Petrie 6 years ago
The profit motive does NOT ensure efficiency. Regulation of private ownership is not effective.
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Claire Lawrence 6 years ago
I want public ownership of public services so that services are run for the needs of people and not profit. We need to develop public transport to help reduce pollution and congestion.
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Anonymous 6 years ago
Our railways need investment. In many places elsewhere in Europe and the world railways are public owned and run efficiently in an integrated system, for the benefit of the public rather than investors
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Jane Eades 6 years ago
Surely the East Coast line has told us everything we need to know about the stupidity of putting rail into private hands. It is also the case that the maintenance of the track and trackside next to my house has been severely reduced and there is rubbish which has been there for at least 5 years.
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Harriet Browne 6 years ago
Any nationally used utility should be in public ownership. That includes the railways. Any profits arising should be put back into the business, not handed out to shareholders. There are plenty of less essential companies who can benefit from private speculation
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Mary Wilson 6 years ago
The present situation is not working, especially for residents and visitors on the Lakes Line.fare increases have added insult to injury. ENOUGH.
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Anna Smallwood 6 years ago
Our railways need investment. Public ownership works elsewhere for the benefit of passengers not investors
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Dave Newson 6 years ago
Integrating the UK’s expensive and fragmented rail network under public ownership could save hundreds of millions and also provide a better service.
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Nicola Packer 6 years ago
People need reliable and affordable public transport. It probably needs to be subsidised to coax people out of their cars and to reduce carbon emissions.
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A.Campbell 6 years ago
We need a proper intergrated railway system. Let us see if this government can get one thing right.
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Stephanie Wrightson 6 years ago
The present state of rail services in this country is a disgrace. I certainly can’t afford to travel by train nor can thousands of others. If I did, I know from the experience of others that I would pay a fortune for no seat.
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Tony Scott 6 years ago
I think the rail system should be publicly owned - this would stop money being taken out of the system though profits and share holder dividends.
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Helga Ragnarsdóttir 6 years ago
Public ownership ensures that transport links are viewed as a right to all and not a profitable market to the few.
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DRJA Dewar 6 years ago
Since privatisation(s), the railways have been denuded of much continuity of safety-related experience. A fully integrated railway is necessary to rebuild the continuity of expertise.
Adding a profit-taking layer, for the shibboleth of share-ownership, only reduces income by taking a slice for thsoe share-holders. In any case, if is very obvious to the general public that ownership becomes, over time, concentrated into the haand of few - however it started out - to the general damage of the service.
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Alexander Noble 6 years ago
Because the break-up of the railways has led to just as much of a drain on the public purse as before privatisation, with added inefficiency.
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Adrian Bridges 6 years ago
Stop the rip off railway's
What happened to the Tory Major comment about more open access and competition. Hereford to Cardiff one operator and rip off fares
It's now a rich man's railway.
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Michael Gray 6 years ago
Bringing the railway system back into public ownership will remove the crippling fragmentation which currently exists, and will allow for integrated public transport across the country.
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Robert Hall 6 years ago
The railways should be run as a public service and not for profit.If private enterprise is involved, this should be for management on a fixed price contract basis.Ticket prices should be based on the ability to pay:- Tax codes, unemployment, pension rights, can then be taken into account.
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Linda Karlsen 6 years ago
A national rail strategy is required to reduce travel by car and consequently reduce the UK’s carbon foot print. This cannot be achieved with separate organisations working primarily to make a profit for shareholders. We are shareholders of planet earth and we must behave responsibly
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Jen Williams 6 years ago
I live in the North East. I know how much better the East Coast mainline is when in public ownership.
We build trains ten miles away from where I live, but they are not going to be used on our line. They are going to the highest bidder.
There should be no bidders.
Rail and buses are natural monopolies amd should be put back in public hands.
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Bryan Short 6 years ago
The situation for a wheelchair user is deplorable on the ancient train carriages, we are expected to travel hundreds of miles in ironically First Class accommodation without access to a toilet.
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Paul Ward 6 years ago
It's absolutely clear that private companies gain massive profits at the expense of the travelling public. We should own our own railways and other public transport. Privatisation has been a disaster.
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Nicola Martin 6 years ago
Today my 20 year old daughter laughed when I said she should consider taking a train. She said “Mum the railways are for rich people, there’s no way I can afford to do that”. Sadly I agree with her, I also can’t afford to use the train. For the good of the environment and also for social mobility we have to make train journeys a realistic choice for the poorer/ younger/ older/ members of society
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Francesca Jaggs 6 years ago
I think public ownership is the way to go.
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maloney 6 years ago
To see the world in a grain of sand.
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Dr. Fred Knaggs 6 years ago
How long must be wait for sanity to be restored?
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Joan Young 6 years ago
East coast mainline has proved that public ownership can be profitable . Private ownership has failed miserably,the interests of fare paying passengers should be top priority ,profits should be used for investment in the railway system.
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Patricia Dellar 6 years ago
Our railways should be for the people and not for business to make huge profits to line their and shareholders pockets. It is a disgrace that this government allows this to happen and this is why it should not be privatised but back in house and any profit should go back into the working of the railways. One of the reasons that the train fares are so exorbitant is the big profits being made by these companies which is completely unacceptable, pricing people such as myself and my husband from using the railway on our pensions. Go back to being British Rail which should be the envy of the world. If other countries can give a good inexpensive service so should we.
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Kathleen Meredith 6 years ago
The people who use the railways are the ones who pay for them when privatised they do not get any say in what happens so there are price rises that can be ill-afforded public ownership dives the people who use the service a voice and a say on where the money is spent.
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Anonymous 6 years ago
Public ownership means accountability and profits going back into our rail system, all joined up!!
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EILEEN QUILTER WILLIAMS 6 years ago
I think that of all the privatisation exercises, the Rail has been the least successful and most troublesome. None of the private enterprise companies that have attempted to run their piece of the system has really managed to do so to their satisfaction without pricing Rail out of the market for most people except for essential travel and have frequently caused mayhem into the bargain. Enough is enough. It is necessary now to accept that the national nature and interdependence of the railway network and the importance that it has, and could have for even people, makes it a better solution to take it back into public ownership.
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Jonathan Swift 6 years ago
The railway ha$ got wor$e, and all that ha$ happened i$ that other people have got richer.
One of the main argument$ again$t public owner$hip i$ 'inflexibilty'. Why i$ a huge company like Virgin a$$umed to be capable of runing a railway, when they made their money $elling record$, and their main bu$ine$$ now i$ phone$ ?
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Philip Cumberland 6 years ago
I want the railways taken into Public Ownership, not state ownership. I want to see every citizen who has a National Insurance number given one share each in the railways. No one can own more than one share, any profits made would be shared out in the form of dividends to the shareholders, The shares cannot be sold, given away or sold. When the citizen dies that share disappears. The state will take over the railways and give them to the people.
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Anonymous 6 years ago
Totally agree, you echo my own thoughts exactly. I've written to We Own It on exactly this subject a couple of times but sadly got no response. Putting the Railways back into state hands is the *last* thing we should do. The users of the railways should be the owners. End of.
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Biba 6 years ago
Dear Philip and Anonymous,
Thank you for your comment and suggestion. The reason we want public ownership as opposed to share ownership is because the railway needs public subsidy/investment to run. Some lines are naturally profitable and others are not, but all of the lines are needed for passengers despite this. This is why it's important that the railway runs as a cohesive network and profits that are made are reinvested back into the service. We think that people want a good service that runs efficiently for everyone over receiving any share profits back themselves.
On the point about contacting us on this issue, we do our best to respond to every single email we get so we are really sorry to hear that you did not get a reply to this.
Many thanks,
The We Own It team
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Richard Stakes 6 years ago
The railways are now in a chaotic state as never before. Privatisation will not work however how many tries the government takes to try to fool the paying public. The Tories should admit their defeat and move on. They won't of course as all of their policies are ideologically (idiotologically) driven.
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Alan wright 6 years ago
I want a railway that has proper, ongoing investment to maintain its infrastructure ; which is staffed for the benefit of passengers, not managers ; that ploughs all profits back into the service rather than lining the pockets of shareholders ; that is fully integrated with other transport systems, including publicly-owned buses, trams and underground systems ; that has a simple fare structure ; where subsidies go to reducing fares to entice everyone to use trains rather than cars, not to provide profit for private companies ; that is owned by the British people.
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Andrew Meadows 6 years ago
Today I travelled on Dutch trains and British trains. The difference in quality of service is profound. The British rail experience is embarrassing.
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Les Beswick 6 years ago
I lived in Holland in the early 1980's, and in doing so, travelled by bicycle and trains through Holland and also across the continent of Europe, there trains put British trains to shame..
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Tina Leonard 6 years ago
I don’t want shareholders making money from our railways. I want the profits to be put back into improving the service.
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Paul Brown 6 years ago
The railways are so fragmented it should be one railway, I've worked on the railway for 10 years and during that time the company that was not profit making was the best, maintainence was done and money ploughed back into the services how it should be
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Tim Anderson 6 years ago
Private companies have proved incompetent at running a railway. State run railways work better so take them back now.
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Charlie Browne 6 years ago
Railways belonged to the British public, but were sold off at knock-down prices to entrepreneurs byMargaret Thatcher.
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stuart bannerman 6 years ago
The present system is a shambles - many times worse than when it was 'British Rail' in the 1980s (I know, I was a season ticket commuter back then). Privatised franchises put short term profits before long term investment. By contrast, the public run East Coast main line manages to get it right.
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Ruth Dawes 6 years ago
East Coast Mainline under public ownership worked very well. Let's take that as a good model and take the whole network into public ownership.
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Dr. Rodney Watts 6 years ago
I am not a person who believes in public ownership for each and every large corporation. However the Railways are clearly a nationwide concern, dependent on the support of a sizeable proportion of the public. Indeed the latter are stakeholders who have been utterly let down by privatisation, which has seen certain individuals make significant financial gains at the expense of Joe Public, who has also suffered personal distress. The efficiency of individual franchises and the efficacy of national maintenance and improvement works are deplorable.
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Jacqueline Nash 6 years ago
Please make the railways fit for purpose. Stop paying the shareholders and subsidizing foreign state owned railways. Charity begins at home
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David Smallman 6 years ago
Some form of public ownership would make it possible to simplify the rail fare system, this would provide more savings and would make it easier for more people to travel by rail. -Good for passengers, good for the environment.
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Michael Lewis 6 years ago
Our railways are an expensive rip off where profits matter rather than running a public service.
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Lou Simpson 6 years ago
I remember when we owned the railway and sure it was not perfect, but I do know I could get most places with no changes ar only one. The fares were affordable and need to be again.
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Clare Rochford 6 years ago
I think that the railways should be a public service.
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william gordon 6 years ago
Its time us being taxpayers get a first class deal for us, not propping up fat cats. and saving so much money will ensure we have a service we deserve
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Mike Tyrrell 6 years ago
I no longer use the rail as it is too expensive and unreliable, why pay to stand in overcrowded carriages, far more convenient and comfortable using my car
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Simon Warren 6 years ago
Rail fairs rising and trains services getting worse instead of train been run to the same set of rules for a better price not going into outside company’s profits
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Emily 6 years ago
Improve efficiences across the network through joined up planning between operators and network rail and across regions to improve provision and accountability
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Simon Price-Johnson 6 years ago
The rail network (and other public transportation systems) is as much an essential service as water, healthcare, education and public safety and as such should be owned by the people, admistrated by the state for the public benefit and never be abused by the private sector for the personal gain of fat cats.
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Pamela Ellis 6 years ago
Passengers before profit. Let's have a railway that is all of a piece and run for its users not shareholders.
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Roger Philpott 6 years ago
The profits from the railways would then be put back into improving the system rather than being syphoned off to shareholders and speculators of companies which are sometimes foreign owned and not even in British ownership. Accountability would also be much more specific.
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Peter Buckley 6 years ago
The cost of running our railways has resulted in more money being spent on subsidising them than was spent when they were in public ownership. This money has gone directly to shareholders in private companies or to nationalised railways of other countries. The Conservative do not believe in nationalised railways unless they are foreign railways operating in this country.
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Michael Galvin 6 years ago
Railways are a public service and
should be publicly owned and run
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John Howitt 6 years ago
It's just common sense
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Alan frost 6 years ago
Railways run for the public not for profits.
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Judith Joy 6 years ago
The privatisation mantra which drives our government has been given long enough to prove it works better for the country. The result is that it does not and the country now demands railways to match those of almost all comparable EU countries. I am tired and fed up of being embarrassed by the railway service we offer when this country invented the system. We are a laughing stock and lag way behind our EU partners. Do our Tory Ministers never travel by train when abroad - or in this country?
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Patrick Jeffery 6 years ago
The most successful rail network in the UK is in Northern Ireland & it is in public ownership. They have been able to invest in the infrastructure while keeping fares stable & provide a first class service to the travelling public. This is an example of how public ownership will improve our rail system. I urge you to recommend taking the rail system back into public ownership to take us into the future.
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David Wagner 6 years ago
We need a reunited railway, re-nationalised to serve the passengers rather than the shareholders of the train operating companies.
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Paul brown 6 years ago
Railway is too fragmented I've work on the railway for 10 years and the best company I worked for was non profit making ploughing all money made into maintainence and giving customer service
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Heidy Kempe-Bottcher 6 years ago
I strongly agree with public ownership of our railways!
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Peter Sparrow 6 years ago
The railways need effective management - done for the people and not big companies!! Grayling is uselss and does't seem to be able to run anything effectively!!
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Richard Lewis 6 years ago
Do not close off your mind to the obvious,just for political dogma.
Under British Rail, it was the most efficient system in Europe, it was by no means the best but it was run very efficiently and cheaply.
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Mitzi Broom 6 years ago
Privatisation has clearly not worked. The maintenence of railways is a shambles, cost of travel puts people off using services.
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Jim Jones 6 years ago
The Government has accepted the need for a second, safety critical, person on trains in the interests of public safety but, under private ownership the Train Companies can ignore or delay its operation. This is a further example of how the private sector fail the travelling public and demonstrates its gross inadequacy.
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Iain Sword 6 years ago
It has been clear that privatisation and fragmentation of Britain's railways has benefitted the Train Companies and not the passengers. Strongly rising prices are met with with poor reliability and punctuality going from bad to worse. Huge sums of money have been paid in dividends to shareholders which with a publicly-owned railway could have been invested in services. Many of the Train Companies are foreign-owned, some in countries which do not have privatised railways and where services are better and fares lower. The saga of the East Coast line where it has been profitable under public ownership but with operating companies unable to make it viable and losing money to the public purse. Industrial relations under private ownership have been lamentable. The much vaunted timetable improvements turned out to be a fiasco. This privatised model is inefficient and poor value for money.
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Heidy Kempe-Bottcher 6 years ago
I strongly agree with public ownership of our railways!
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Carol Hull 6 years ago
Standing on a train from Kings Cross to Doncaster on a Virgin train shows me privatisation is Not Working.
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David Britten 6 years ago
Privatisation has been an unmitigated disaster. Whereas public money used to subsidise rail transport for the benefit of rail users, even more money now subsidises the dividends of shareholders and executives while rail fares increase to levels unprecedented across Europe
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Karen Stevens 6 years ago
I commute daily to my place of work, mainly by rail. I have a work subsidised season ticket, which still costs me more than £1600 per year, to travel on substandard services which are overcrowded and subject to delay. This is unacceptable. It is time to return public transport to public ownership and the profits ploughed back into improving the service and infrastructure.
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Mik Norman 6 years ago
We need investment now in rolling stock, stations and freight; not years after companies get contracts and then run old stock into the ground until they have to invest. We need longer trains on busy lines where currently companies lease cheap short trains for profit-boosting.
We need a "passenger first" culture - then work from there - not a "profit first" one as we have now.
We need an integrated rail system - in fact more than that, we need an integrated TRANSPORT system and an environmentally sustainable one, linked with bus and cycle. The entire Dutch rail network runs on sustainable electricity - we still use antiquated and polluting diesels.
We need cheap fares - these boost the economy, a move away from private cars; combat isolation for older people (railcards notwithstanding) and assist people with disabilties. We need more awareness of disabled travellers - many of the private companies STILL reflect appalling attitudes in this respect.
We need to vastly improve the infrastructure - reinstate viable old lines, upgrade busy single lines to double ones again, link major development areas stupidly being built nowhere near rail lines let alone a station; allow tunnels and bridges to accept power lines; through continental trains and effective freight haulage.
We need guards on trains - for safety, emergency cover and passenger assistance.
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Rebecca Pollitt 6 years ago
Having private companies running transport for poor people is just not efficient. Making a profit from people's necessity of travelling to work is terrible. Trains if ran properly could reduce emissions, help the environment, reduce congestion, make air cleaner (electric trains) and could improve the commute for millions of people. Currently, trains are unreliable, crowded, out-dated and inefficient. Why would private companies want to invest in the railways? It's not in their interest...they don't use it or more importantly, they don't need it.
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Maggie Kraus 6 years ago
The railways are in a desperate state and need controlling without greed being a motivator.
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David Tigwell 6 years ago
I lived in Germany for many years where the railway is nationalised. The system is integrated, reliable and efficient.
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John Illingworth 6 years ago
Railways are a natural monopoly, where it is difficult to establish any meaningful market place or competition between suppliers. With no reliable way to judge performance, governments are obliged to use revenue-raising as a proxy, with the disastrous results seen on the East Coast main line. Public ownership is the only sensible way to run this system. All other options are inferior.
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Ken Elmer 6 years ago
Because it is the only way to fix it.
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Carolyn Knight 6 years ago
The last few years have proven that publicly owned railways perform better and are more profitable than the private ones that filed repeatedly.
We are subsidising private failure with public money, and these companies are still taking 'profits' and paying divivdends. What with? The public money they receive. Madness.
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Ian Evans 6 years ago
What we have now, is not fit for purpose, successive governments have dodged the issue in favour of letting private companies make obscene profits, without putting anything back in
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Gail McCallum 6 years ago
Our railways should be run for passengers, not for shareholders.
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Christopher Sheldon 6 years ago
As a regular user of Scotrail and the former East Coast, then Virgin and now LNER I have seen these service decline in private hands. It's time to call it a day and support the public demand for these services to be brought back under permanent public ownership.
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David osborn 6 years ago
Please stop profits from leaving uk so money can be used to improve railways
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Sarah Joiner 6 years ago
Like the Post Office, the railway system was paid for from Government funding, for the people. The Government got the money with which they paid for the railway from taxes, from funds from the people. It was never theirs to sell. So, since the private zone is not working, it is a good opportunity to give it back. Other state run railways like Holland & japan, have huge success. In fact, I m guessing they are able to be so efficient because they pay for the best in all areas, and therefore it works well, and everyone is happy. It is inevitably more efficient to use profits to improve the serives offered.
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Susie Main 6 years ago
Private ownership has proved an expensive disaster, please use common sense and bring the railway back into public ownership.
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Anonymous 6 years ago
Many of our railway companies are owned by European public bodies and their countries railways are, very sensibly, in public ownership. Railways are essential parts of a country's infrastructure and should be planned and owned in the public, rather than shareholder interests.
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paul Johnson 6 years ago
Renationalisation of our railway network is imperative as at present it is a national digrace!
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maggie kraus 6 years ago
Already commented on this. Time to re-nationalise the railways!
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Ann Eggleton 6 years ago
In this modern world, the option to travel in a way that does less damage to our planet is (should be) a Common Good. We need to keep it part of the public zone to ensure that social good is valued more than commercial profit.
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Kevin Stables 6 years ago
I want to see joined up railways, instead of fractured franchises. I want the money paid on fares to be spent on the railways, not to line the pocket of shareholders!
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Rosemary Golding 6 years ago
I'm old enough to remember the nationalised railway system. How I've missed it! Whatever the drawbacks, fixed reasonable ticket prices across the country and profits fed back into improving the service rather than into shareholders' pockets. It's a no-brainer. Let's get a decent public transport system working again
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Kim Moore 6 years ago
Because the railways are an integral part of both social and economic infrastructure. They shouldn't be a political pawn, to be milked as a cash cow by shareholders. They are essential for the public and should be in the public's hands, and make fares not only cheaper, but also the same for journeys of the same length, regardless of area.
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Jerry Gale 6 years ago
Because private companies have made a complete mess up of it so far and the only people that gain from private companies are the shareholders.
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Lewis Gurran 6 years ago
Line closures, crippling lack of investment, continually inflated fares, attempting to phase out guards for the sake of savings on wages and massive public money bailouts when fudged numbers make franchises "unviable" - the rail system has dreadfully mismanaged for decades and is still moving in the wrong direction. Privatisation has demonstrably given worse value and worse service. It needs to be reversed for the sake of the public good.
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Jan Lucas 6 years ago
The government is currently subsidising the rail network with taxpayer's money; money that is going directly into shaeholders pockets whcilst the railway system is creaking at the seams. get it back into public ownership so that at least the money which WE are subsidising the railways with will not be wasted but actually go to do some good. and maybe we will have a chance to get a great railway service again.
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mark.grocott 6 years ago
The Railways should have not be sold off private sector taken profits out to share Holders fat cat it was run better under British Railways it should no run for profit
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Peter Cox 6 years ago
After the success of the East Coast line it is clear that a publicly run service is both more efficient and less costly. It is also impossible to run a properly co-ordinated transport policy that puts users first when responsibility if spread amongst so many organisations. And a politician is in charge.
Public ownership should be based on a co-operative model so that all sections, employees, users and investors, including the taxpayer, have a fair say. The service should be focussed on delivering the needs of the whole community - and not just train users.
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Tez B 6 years ago
Public transport is a public service. It should always be run for the benefit of its users, never for remote shareholders or investors. Public ownership is the only justifiable and sensible formula.
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Carole Griffiths 6 years ago
East Coast was profitable until you privatised it again. Railways should be fun for the public not profit.
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Brendan Frain 6 years ago
Public ownership is in the best interests of all concerned.
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Susan Richardson 6 years ago
Public ownership would result in a more co-ordinated system and if managed properly better services. Any profits could be used to maintain the railways rather than to enrich individuals.
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Anonymous 6 years ago
Private franchises simply dont work to benefit the public or the economy. Why? Because subsidìes from taxpayers are needed to ensure safety standards are met. This finance is clearly not being used for intended purpose thereby not benefitting service users passengers in case of railway services.
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Bran Whiitton 6 years ago
The railways need long-term strategic planning, not decisions made based on the more vocal members of the government at the time. Almost every time I travel by rail (mostly long-distance journeys), I can see features which could be improved by better planning of the whole system. Some would be expensive, but some relatively cheap.
In view of increased worries about atmospheric pollution, seems probable that demand for rail use will increase markedly.
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Mike Heeneman 6 years ago
Margaret Thatcher revolutionised Britain by making state monopolies no longer assume the people by having competition from other companies so if people were ripped off they could vote with their feet and wallets and it worked, BT, Electricity and Gas were great examples and she deserves salutation for what she achieved. John Major as her 'consolidator' turned the motivation of privatisation from competition to solely the profit motive which was a corruption of her genius. Then New Labour came in and simply suppressed debate whilst starting privatisation of the NHS on the basis of the profit motive and Dutch auction bidding rather than any option for patients to choose anything. Rail is based on this, not letting customers use their wallets on the same section of track by making all franchises monopolies. How Margaret cries in heaven, she would allow at least two operators on any one route and whilst she would allow the private sector we would also allow state franchises. Put them in competition, let the people decide.
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Stuart 6 years ago
Bring back British railways..we need ALL the profits put back into a nationalized railway system..not into shareholders pockets...
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Russell Odom 6 years ago
Amplifier public service which should be run for public benefit, not profit.
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Jane Owens 6 years ago
Train companies are patently failing in their duty to passengers. I am old enough to remember just how much more efficient the railway services were when in public ownership.
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Bill 6 years ago
On three occasions last year my daughter was amongst the unlucky people left on the platform to wait nearly an hour for the next train on her daily commute. For the full duration of her season ticket she never got a seat.
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Jim Ennis 6 years ago
I want public ownership of the railways because in the Liverpool area, our local railways are owned by the Dutch State railway! Yes, the Dutch STATE railways.
I've recently visited Rotterdam, Netherlands and was very impressed with their public railways... and trams and metro system.
Why can't our railways be as good as theirs?
They never will be as long as they're are in the hands of right-wing capitalist who care nothing for the public, in my opinion.
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Ken Hesketh 6 years ago
The lack of investment in railway moving stock and track, efficiency and scheduling is pathetic compared to the amount the consumers regularly pay and are expected to pay in every price hike. This has to change.
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John Tippins 6 years ago
Private sector efficiency is a myth. Put the railways back into public ownership.
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Simon Dugan 6 years ago
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Lyn Jones 6 years ago
The logic behind having a privately-owned network is that the discipline of a competitive market will drive up standards and drive down prices. What we have is a network where standards are deteriorating and prices are increasing. Where private companies have reneged on contracts, as has happened twice on the route I use most (Edinburgh to London), operation has defaulted to public ownership (under the brand names East Coast Rail and currently LNER). Standards have been good and prices have been held. In other words, public ownership has shown itself superior to private. The timetabling debacle much more widely in the summer of 2018 has demonstrated how chaotic things can get with a spaghetti-dish of operating companies trying to integrate with Network Rail and various regulatory bodies. With just one set of rails, there is a natural monopoly; the bold/foolhardy/ideological decision to try to introduce a competitive market just hasn't worked. It's time to recognise this.
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Roslyn Gowers 6 years ago
Having ,ived and worked in Europe and experienced first hand just how much better publicly owned railways operate there, I really don't see any other option. Actually all public transport should be publicly owned and properly integrated if we are even to have a chance of responding to environmental issues.
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Stephen Ryan 6 years ago
We pay more money every year for a rapidly declining service all whilst paying ever greater subsidies for private companies dividends. The myth about private enterprise always leading to greater efficiency has well and truly been disproved with the railways.
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Mark Fitzgerald 6 years ago
Public transport should be run purely for the benefit of the public and not as a profit making exercise
All the best run railways around the world are publicly owned . Privatisation of the railways has been a big disaster
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norman leigh 6 years ago
stop the folly and deliver value for moneu and reinvest profits to improve service rather than benefit shareholders
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Dennis Beddoe 6 years ago
Railways are meant to be a public service and not just about private profit.
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MR T P WEAVERS 6 years ago
In my view, any profits made from the rail service should be re-invested to fund improvements instead of it being handed over to privately run foreign companies.
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EDWARD M BLAND 6 years ago
The private sector has proved to be disastrous for the customer.
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Frances Kay 6 years ago
Since the railways were privatised, fares have rocketed up and the service has declined nationally. I love trains and would use them more if the fares were less exorbitant and trains more reliable. We really can't go on like this. Joined up thinking will improve track and rolling stock, which is no one's responsibility. If there are profits to be made, why can't the Exchequer benefit, not private businesses who don't care about serving the public?
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Chris Stevens 6 years ago
Neo-liberal corporate government has had its day. It has produced a fragmented, poor, expensive service for increases set by HM Government.
National Rail was deliberately thrown to the wolves in the late 1980s by the same Tory policy, in particular Oliver Letwin who wrote the blueprint in his disastrous 1988 tome "Privatising the World" where the general public were deemed consumers who could seek choice. Sadly this was not the case as the railway providers became state monopolies whereby the tax-payer didn't get the profit but received all the risks. The crisis set by the devious Tory party need not have happened but they let it to create the need for privatisation.
The train services are slower today than in 1966. They are often late or not running at all. They are infrequent and unreliable and beset by problems with basic infrastructure.
As fares increase and people's wages decrease, the ability to use this essential service becomes impossible and then the whole system stops.
If you continue with this ridiculously bad political ideology which has seen living standards fall and corporate profits rise, this country will be at war with itself.
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Sylvia Hotchin 6 years ago
Privatisation HASN'T worked - profit before service quality NEVER will work - environmentally, we need a reliable rail service that works FOR transporting people and goods - that won"t happen while shareholders need to be kept happy with huge dividends - be brave and give the country the service it deserves
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Margaret Williams 6 years ago
It is essential that the railways are taken back into public ownership as soon as possible to end the disaster of privatisation
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Dr Turhan Wishart 6 years ago
I want a national railway system run and owned by the people! In addition, track and signalling need to be brought back together.
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Norman McCanch 6 years ago
railways should be a benefit to all instead of increasingly coming to be exclusive to the most wealthy and run primarioly for the benefit of shareholders
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Paul Cockerill 6 years ago
I'm a frequent rail user and my expected tolerance of poor service, overcrowded trains and the most expensive rail system in Europe makes me keen to see a management that delivers a focused public service and not one for maximising shareholder profits and taking taxpayers money too.
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David Napthine 6 years ago
The railways are essential for economic prosperity and social cohesion. Such is their importance that they cannot be subject to the whim of individual owners and shareholders
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Andrew Rudduck 6 years ago
Public funding to enable the likes of Virgin and Stagecoach to pay every increasing dividends and bonus's simply means less investment on OUR rail system. The only way forward is for all publi8c transport to be just that, owned by the public and run for the public not an elite group of profiters
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Chris Parker 6 years ago
It's not only the profits of private rail companies that would be saved by this. There is a large industry dedicated to managing the interfaces between all the private & public players in the current set-up. These include lawyers, insurance companies, people sorting out delay attribution and compensation and much more.
All this leads to the vastly greater costs that passengers & the taxpayer are having to fund.
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Mark Gretton 6 years ago
If I am unsatisfied with my railways there is no way to do anything’s by about it. The point of democracy is to be able to vote out things that don’t work. The job of government is to run infrastructure. Public ownership means we get a say in our infrastructure is run
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James Finch 6 years ago
In my lifetime fares have gone up massively above inflation, services have been cut despite increasing usage (like the Lowestoft -> Manchester direct that I used to use to visit my family) — while the companies running our trains have reported massive profits. We have the most expensive rail system in Europe, and it's getting in the way of our lives, from work to socialising to campaigning.
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Tony Graham 6 years ago
Short-termism is encouraged under the present system. Routine elementary service failures are ignored : there is often no sign of the supposed sensitivity of the private companies to consumer satisfaction. The recently published IPCC Report refers to the significant potential contribution of mass public transport. Inadequate staffing, investment & maintenance all combine too often to produce frustration & anger. Comparative pricing of rail as against road & air adds another strong (& absurd) disincentive to improvements in our environment & the aim to minimise climate change.
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Len Gale 6 years ago
Public ownership would mean all profits ploughed back into the system, the end of a fragmented services with so may private companies involved and an over-arching policy to ensure efficient services across the country
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Grahame Bligh 6 years ago
I want railways returned to public ownership because under privatisation the price of train fares has increased by 35% in the last few. years.The service has not improved.many services have been delayed and cancelled in the last year. The service is not giving passengers value for money. In spite of increase profits for company shareholders, Rail workers and station staff are in dispute of pay increases and over the removing of a guard on trains
Many train stations and platforms have not improved in spite of Government promises to fund improvements. Many of these problems would be solved I& the railways returned to public ownership
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Chris Johnson 6 years ago
It is ludicrous that some private companies or individuals are receiving huge "dividends" from the railways when government is paying out subsidies.
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Grayan Adams 6 years ago
The time has come (and gone) for us to face the fact that privatising the railways (and other public assets) was always an ideologically-driven game. Ideology has no place in good governance; common sense, plus the goal of governing for citizens - not Busine$$ - should be the only priority.
If we are to have any chance of meeting Climate Change targets, it is of the utmost importance that public transport steps up to the mark. With ever-increasing shareholder-driven prices heading towards the heavens, this is clearly not going to happen.
The railways are already heavily subsidised by central govt, so arguments against subsidies are irrelevant. I would like to see shares held by the users of the railways themselves, rather than rent-seeking private equity firms, as is currently the case. Germany is an excellent current example of what happens when public transport is privatised - dissatisfaction is at an all-time record high.
We cannot, and do not want to, go back to the old ways; union-run railways are not the answer. We have surely learned enough over the last decades to come up with a more reasonable way of owning and running public assets.
Please, for all our sakes, have the honesty and courage to acknowledge Failing Grayling's ideological obsessions for what they are: #NotFitForPurpose.
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Dr Adrian Morgan 6 years ago
The system is too fragmented and broken because it is operated by too many players who tend to be insular in their thinking and operating. Journeys are not guaranteed to be completed on time or to be completed by rail and not by bus.
Ticket prices are far too high, especially turn up and go fares, and according to experts are a third higher than they should be entirely due to privatisation.
Government is now paying almost twice as much to Operating companies as they did to British Rail, at 2018 prices, in subsidies, our taxes.
Take back franchises as they come up for renewal.
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Claire 6 years ago
The ecological collapse facing the world must involve a radical move away from inefficient and carbon pollution car/road based transport towards a massive expansion of public transport and walking/cycling options.
This will require the system to be taken back into public hands so it can become part of an overall radically overhauled transport and energy infrastructure that puts investment in renewable forms of energy and shares it out amongst the key industries- such as public transport.
Both withstanding all that - the current train and bus operators are failing to provide a decent service and prioritise profits over public value and planetary health.
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Barry Fairbrother 6 years ago
We are shamed when we see the quality of railways in other countries.
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Chris Miller 6 years ago
I would like a public monopoly on rail, which a vital national interest. Privatisation was incompetent and has resulted in customer confusion and diffused responsibility. Shareholder dividends are taken out of the industry when profits should be reinvested so that we gain a competent and reliable service.
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Tim Owen 6 years ago
I have travelled between Newcastle and London on The East Cost mainline for decades, including prior to retirement for work. Private rail franchises have failed badly. Public ownership is better in theory and practice. Governments (of whatever colour) need to get behind effective delivery of public ally owned services.
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Valerie wilkinson 6 years ago
We have a broken railway system which does not work.it needs to be publicly owned, instead of a drain on taxpayers who have to bail it out when necessary.
Profits should be ploughed back to improve the system, not into shareholders pockets.
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Ken Earney 6 years ago
I want a single coherent structure for our railways - take Deutsche Bahn as your model, and a public ownership model - may be like Deutsche Bahn but other of good,successful examples are possible. Get good experienced railway people running it but NOT direct state control please - ministerial interference has been a disaster.
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Alan Stovell 6 years ago
It seemed a good idea to privatise the railways but it is not working as well as it was hoped for. The current franchise system is creating high costs for users and I reluctantly think the railways need to go back into public ownership. Network Rail is also failing as it contracts out far too much work and employs costly consultants, from the 'Big 4' accountancy firms, who have no idea on how a railway should operate.
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Eileen Stapleton 6 years ago
I want railways to be in public ownership so that profit will be put back into the organisation instead of the stock-holders' pockets. I've had enough of supporting the wealthy whilst the public suffer.
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Michael Winterburn 6 years ago
I would like to see an integrated public transport system across the whole country, trains, buses etc. I do not believe that this is possible without public ownership. Furthermore the private companies currently running rail services have shown that they put shareholder interests first, and passenger interests a long way down.
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Joy Partridge 6 years ago
The taxpayer should not be footing the bill to prop up the dividends of shareholders of train companies that are inefficient, run late repeatedly when they run at all and don't plough profits into improving the infrastructure. These companies should NOT be subsidized by the taxayer! Public ownership can only improve the service which is truly broken.No more privatization!
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Barry 6 years ago
Rail privatisation has been a disaster, it's time to restore the railway to public ownership as a single unified body.
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Janet Baldwin 6 years ago
Railways are a public service, and as such should not be run for profit. They should be publically owned. They are in the awful mess they are in because profit has been systematically put before the needs of the railway using public...they are a disgrace.
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dale elgar 6 years ago
Profits for the rail system not shareholders
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Mel Crowther 6 years ago
It's time to bring back our shambolic railways into public ownership. The private sector is incapable of putting their passengers first.
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Perry525 6 years ago
Under EU law we cannot nationalize the railways. We must leave the EU first. Perhaps tomorrow?
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Efan Fisher 6 years ago
Our railways are not only a part of our heritage but a key part of our national infrastructure. By taking back control we can ensure that the service works for all British people. Improving peoples lives as they can travel with greater ease at less cost and also increasing the attractiveness of our country for foreign investment in our town and cities. These can become better connected by a reimagined, public railway. Britain should be proud of its railway heritage and continue to be proud of it today, however, this is only possible by public ownership in order to bring it back to competency!
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Cordelia Thomas 6 years ago
Public ownership would avoid the private companies taking profit out of the railways ahead of ny investment into them, and avoid the costly legal process required to draw up contracts, which appear to always result in a more favourable deal for the companies than the government. Railways should be a publicly owned utility run for the benefit of the population.
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Nadia Batool 6 years ago
I travel daily by train for work, whether to my local offices or those across the country, as well as at least weekly for leisure. The service seems to constantly be getting worse, yet prices go up.
I know people who work for the east coast main line, and they have been very able to deliver the service better whilst publicly owned. The sale of the franchise to private entities seems to bring change and cost cutting constantly for no reason but to increase profit for their shareholders.
In addition the carving up between network rail and franchises seems to allow accountability to be diluted.
I have come to the belief that essential services such as transport must be publicly owned to ensure accountability. This also avoids companies leveraging their debt and stripping assets from franchises which then results in better returns for shareholders but a poorer service for the public. It is also not a purely academic exercise, as the east coast did demonstrably run more on time, with better feedback from the public.
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Pat Rowley 6 years ago
I completely endorse the comments above. Please heed public opinion on this issue and not big business that consistently lets the public down and is bailed out at taxpayers expense.
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Eleanor Thompson 6 years ago
We are wasting resources paying for profits for private companies. Public ownership matures sense
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Andrew Wood 6 years ago
Foreign companies should not profit from operating are public transport.
Any profit should be re invested in railway improvements and reduce fares
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Ben Eldridge 6 years ago
The privatised railway isn’t working - it’s time to give public ownership a chance
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David Hill 6 years ago
It is very simple. We need to keep private profit out of an essential service which should be owned and controlled by the public permanently. If adequately funded by the tax base we should get to the point where rail fares are reduced and more in keeping with prevailing low wages and ideally become a fare free service
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Rita Garlovsky 6 years ago
Please take this seriously..... OAP Rita
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peter keyton 6 years ago
Surely state owned services are the only way to go. Plowing profits back into them rather than into corrupt ceo's purses has to be what's best for the UK public.
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Emily Cornell 6 years ago
I want to be be able to afford to visit places, I want my children to be able to go to museums and plays in London and other towns and cities.
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Karin Andrews Jashapara 6 years ago
I am really really tired of poor services and high prices. We have engineering works almost every weekend, and young families on tight budgets cannot afford to take the children into the city which is their heritage because of the high cost of 'public' transport.
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Nicholas Roslund 6 years ago
If HS2 and CrossRail represent the most significant investment in public transport by government in at least a generation then following a similar logic, why can't our existing railway companies fall within the ambit of public finance too? Our leading competitor nations never considered full railway privatisation. Can we not evolve towards a superior publicly funded model of transport for the people.?
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Peter Smithurst 6 years ago
all 'public' services should be for the benefit of the public, not corporate shareholders
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Tim Bounds 6 years ago
Privatisation has clearly failed to improve the railways, and has led to disorganisation, confusion, increased need for subsidies and increased bureaucracy. The split of the railways into operations, infrastructure and rolling stock ownership clearly doesn't work very well, negating any idea of integrated services, or even of planning them.
I live in the North East of England (Teesside). You will obviously be aware of the ongoing farce that franchising has resulted on the East Coast Main Line services, which each new franchisee over estimating how much revenue they can rip out of the travelling public and seek more financial lifeboats from the Govt. The Govt has wisely refused to do this, but fails to notice that the service improves when taken back into public sector operation. Meanwhile, the minor lines operated by the Northern franchise visibly rot through neglect - services identical those operated 20 years ago still operate, using 40 year old trains that were inadequate when new. We are now supposed to celebrate the Pacers are being replaced by slightly better trains that are equally old but 'refurbished', and some trains that are 'only'
30 years old. Of course, we pay rapidly increasing fares that fund infrastructure improvements in the South East like Crossrail and HS2, but no investment ever reaches the North.
The state of the railways is so bad that it is obvious that something has to change. Privatisation has made things worse, so Public ownership must be re-established so that a more coherent approach can be taken.
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bruce cooper 6 years ago
I don`t want my money to pay obscene salaries and / or to fill the pockets of shareholders.
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Richard MERRIMAN 6 years ago
SICK OF TORY RIP-OFF AND LIES
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Hilary Sheffield 6 years ago
Investment is needed in the system instead of what profits there are being siphoned off. Modernised rolling stock would be a start with sufficient space for passengers
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James Ross 6 years ago
There's still no improvement on train punctuality, and still as many cancellations as ever.
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Shaun Fowler 6 years ago
Please return the railways back to public ownership. Privatisation is a disaster and just making a few shareholders rich at the expense of taxpayers and the travelling public. Thanks
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Malcolm Ashton 6 years ago
Necessary infrastructure such as railways are essential for the running of the country and should not be used to provide profit for shareholders. Vast subsidies to inefficient private companies are unjustifiable and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
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Ruth Strong 6 years ago
Public ownership should be ale to regain consistency in fare structure and various customs and practices that have grown up with privatised services.
It won't be an instant cure after decades of under-investment in the latter days of British Rail and the extraction of maximum return by privateers more recently. In addition the management practices of the private companies leave a lot to be desired in the way their staff are treated. in the way that experience and knowledge counts for nothing and the growth of short-term-ism so that criticism of bad projects is discouraged by job reviews and the fear of contracts being ended if there is disagreement with higher management.
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Christine Turner 6 years ago
You cannot say that as a nation we haven't given it a good 'go'. Time to stop the fat cats eating the cream and put it back into public ownership!
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David Stower 6 years ago
At least BR knew the country, whereas the private companies that run the railways now have no idea
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Geraldine Fitzgerald 6 years ago
Can't argue with any of the above.
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claire 6 years ago
in europe trains work really well and are not privatised, we can do that are you willing?
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Barry Dunnage 6 years ago
There seems to be a view that returning to a nationalised British Rail service would only lead to the chaos that we all experienced twenty years ago. And this from the wonderful free-market experts who knew everything about what should be done to provide a world class service. Instead of course, they have done more damage than was possible under British Rail and we now have one of the worst services in the free world.
We may be stubborn, but we are not stupid. There is much that can be achieved as a nationalised service that it wasn't achievable in the past, and we have no intention of making the mistakes of the past. We are not asking that no one should own it, which is perhaps what did happen at times previously. We own it, and therein lies the responsibility and the opportunity to get it right.
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Caroline White 6 years ago
In order to reduce our carbon footprint, as a country, we MUST have a good, reliable and affordable railway service, so people can travel without resorting to their cars, as a cheaper option. A nationally owned railway service with employee and user participation will accomplish that.
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STUART LAWES 6 years ago
Despite Vicious rumours to the contrary(Mr Grayling!) the unions only want what's best for the staff and travelling public.
This will NOT be a return to the 'Bad old days of BR!' either. If suitable funding is made available like never before, we can all have a railway system which is efficient , effective and economical.
A railway run FOR the purpose of public travel.
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Leighton Lewis 6 years ago
Public Run Services profits goes back into the Public Purse,
Private Run Services profits goes to Greedy Rich Fat Cats,
It is a No Brainer!
Please Re-Nationalise now !
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Robert Harper 6 years ago
The biggest problem is fragmentation
DfT (the government) sets the goals. The DfT tells the francisees the what & how. The DfT tells the franchisees what with (ie the trains). The ORR (another part of the government) is judge & jury
No one makes it all work TOGETHER, meanwhile everyone has to make a profit!
Chaos
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Anthony Western 6 years ago
Privatisation will never be in the interests of the public
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Alan Lansdowne 6 years ago
Publicly owned railways, run in the public interest, enable the national economy and society.
In contrast, privately owned railways, run for private commercial interests create frictions which hinder both.
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Bill Taylor 6 years ago
For the sake of my grandchildren and their future we need a world where profit for the few has no part of basic public service industries including rail travel
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Cherie Spalding 6 years ago
I think the railways should be in public ownership the way they have been run at the moment is not in the interest of the public, they have been treated terrible firstly by this government and the way they have sold it on to private investors who don't care about the Railway and the public but how much shareholders get
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Michael Constable 6 years ago
At the moment rail timetables are completely uncoordinated across the country because of the separate companies. Travelling from A to C via B can take hours longer than necessary just because two or more companies are involved. Most places do not have a choice of TOC so competition is meaningless.
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Daniel Brown 6 years ago
It's nonsensical that the British public pays taxes to help maintain our railways, so that train's owned by overseas companies can profit from the sale of train tickets.
Nationalise the Railways now!
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Sandra White 6 years ago
It is vitally important that the need for shareholder dividends be removed from our public services. The railways are of central importance in combating climate change;they need to be treated as a public good, not a profit - generator for private interests.
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Lesley Blanchard 6 years ago
Public transport is a public good and should be seen as a natural monopoly with no place in it for private profit
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N Stirrup 6 years ago
The current system just does not work, and we are forced to use ancient trains barely run by failing companies for a profit that goes to foreign investors.
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Tony Bond 6 years ago
The privatisation of a network where competition is largely irrelevant was always a nonsense. The cost of administering the interface between the differing entities, leave alone the cost of disputes, is ridiculous;ly high and a gross waste of money. The East Coast line was run very successfully my a not-for-profit body by staff who understood railways. With tghe necessary internal best practice drive a public system is on every count a better bet.
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Niamh Michelle Cunningham 6 years ago
Our railways are fractured and are in crisis. Only public ownership can sort out this mess.
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David Hornsby 6 years ago
Privatisation of the railways has been a disaster in all regards. Continuous ridiculous fare increases combined with poor, unreliable services have been the result with companies keen to maximise profits at all costs. The latest 'wheeze' where I live is Northern Rail demanding driver-only trains, with all the risks to safety that comprises. The RMT has been striking for months on Saturdays, but most of the public are 'with' those strikers who are not working to highlight the error of Northern Rail's plans.In these times of global warming and climate change people should be encouraged travel by rail, but this clearly is not happening. Rail throughout the whole of the UK should be part of a new integrated transport policy and system. And, the current incomprehensible ticket price system is a nightmare.Bring railways back under public ownership, not exactly following the model of pre-privatisation, but BETTER. Look around the world, find where it is done well and inculcate best practice. The present situation is unsustainable and untenable. DH
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Keith Walton 6 years ago
The contractual obligations of privatisation and multiple objectives of the different companies add (I estimate) 20-40% to the costs. We pay these. Not happy.
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Roderick Shelton 6 years ago
I have to suffer GTR from King's Lynn to Cambridge and London. This service certainly is not fit for purpose. Back in the 1970's and 1980's this service was an Intercity service. Now it is run using cascaded 387 suburban sets with seats like ironing boards. Despite rising patronage, only four car units can be used due to short platforms even though the aforementioned 10 or 12 coach Intercity trains managed at short platforms. Only one train an hour can run due to Ely north junction being a single track bottleneck handling trains to King's Lynn, Peterborough and Norwich. We have been promised eight car trains and a half hour service for several years now but nothing gets done. Even off peak trains are packed to standing. Toilets are frequently out of order. Journey times got longer, not shorter, with the May 2018 timetable. Trains now have to wait for each other to leave the single track sections and are frequently delayed. AND YET THE FARES WENT UP IN JANUARY!!!!! Enough is enough. It is time to renationalise the railways. Complaints to GTR do not get answered. Private companies have shown that they cannot cope and do not care.
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barry burlefinger 6 years ago
Privatisation has failed. One network for one industry to cater for one public
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Joanna Thomas 6 years ago
,
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Michael Porrett 6 years ago
As privatisation has been proven to be such a failure, it's certainly time for public ownership!
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Peter Winfield 6 years ago
Run by 1 body owned by the public like it used 2 be any profit reinvested
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Vivien Doyle 6 years ago
How much more misery must rail travellers endure?
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Rod Hepplewhite 6 years ago
Privatisation of the railways has proven to be an unmitigated disaster viz-a-vis the East Coast Mainline has operated far better since being taken back into public ownership and has returned monies to the public purse instead of them being taken out by the private operators.
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Michael Wells 6 years ago
The era of privatisation from the 1980s onwards is over and has shown, in many respects, that privatisation has benefitted the few to the disadvantage of the many. It is time for an ideological shift in the credo of the government. Public ownerhship can be more profitable and efficient for a greater number of people than the current private ownership arrangements. Time to change, please!
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Pauline Illingworth 6 years ago
The rail system has gone badly downhill since being split into private ownership. I would not consider travelling by train as it stands.
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Roger Le Rolland 6 years ago
Transport should be a public service and all profits should be reinvested in the service not provide an income for the few.
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Stella Wood 6 years ago
I support returning our railways to public ownership. This would mean that railways are run for the public, not for private profit. The savings created would then be reinvested in the networks, to benefit everyone.
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Andrea Titterington 6 years ago
Public ownership means that national infrastructure is owned by the people who depend upon it. Privatization is a dogma of economics that has been shown to fail the public time and time again. This is illustrated by the East Coast fiasco and the outsourcing of public services, e.g. Carillion. It is vital that the public own its own vital services and not private companies, many of which are owned by foreign governments!
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Philip Parry 6 years ago
Privatisation of railways has been a disaster, and somewhat ironic in that some of the franchises are run by other countries' state-owned railway companies
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Robin Hillier 6 years ago
I want public ownership of the railways in order to have an integrated and state supported system of public transport to meet the needs of our times. We need twice as many trains and half as many cars on the roads, and taking back what is ours would be the first step to achieving some sanity in the lives of the citizens of this country.
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Chris Voisey 6 years ago
Long journeys work much better with public ownership because of co-operation between the different lines to make connections work and to save always having to travel through London ie direct routes save adding to pressure on London Transport. This also makes life simpler for disabled people.
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David Dimmock 6 years ago
Public ownership means better services, cheaper tickets and punctual trains
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Collin Deurance 6 years ago
Our railways are clearly not currently fit for purpose.
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Ann Frain 6 years ago
Look at how much better the East Coast Mainline ran when taken away from private ownership.
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Donna Dimmock 6 years ago
Public ownership of the railways will result in a better, punctual service with lower prices
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Helen Lawson 6 years ago
Privatisation hasn't worked. We need to revert to public ownership.
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Rose Elgar 6 years ago
I like the idea of removing shareholders as I do not see why they should take profits from a service that is so essential for the public and for the economy.
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John Miroslaw 6 years ago
railways are part of the national infrastructure and should be run for the good of the country, not for the good of shareholders. This demonstrated by the fact that there has always been government support (otherwise, why does it subsidise them?)
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Lorraine Baker 6 years ago
Public ownership was a success for the East Coast Mainline, why not consider public ownership for the whole of the railway network. More privatisation will not fix the problems - privatisation has already failed rail users. The British public want public ownership of the whole railway system.
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Rodney J. Sobey 6 years ago
My wife and I do not have a car but need to travel from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Newcastle frequently for MEDICAL treatment. The East Coast Main Line has only operated RELIABLY when it was publicly owned after a private operator just walked away! When again privatised (Virgin East Coast), the East Coast Main Line again became very unreliable, to the extent that history was repeated and Virgin East Coast just walked away. The current operator LNER seems to under Westminster instructions to prove that public ownership will not work!
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BRIAN E HODGKINSON 6 years ago
When I first saw the plan's for the railway's year's ago we knew what was going to happen,and so my wife and I made the decision not to include railway travel in any travelling arrangement's we needed to make.
We realised that a government comprising of large number of incompetent member's who like the kudos of being in charge without much input from themselves would start and continue to privatise and farm out as much of our infrastructure as they could,regardless of whether it made sense or not.
They could then sit there with their cronies and pass the buck when thing's go pear shaped.
It s stated time and again that passenger number's are up but I feel sorry for the majority as they are seen as cash cow's who have less choice in the matter.
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Christine Ellis 6 years ago
Our railways are a disgrace and will only get worse they should be in public ownership
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Stephen Dunkerley 6 years ago
The public must own services where there is no choice on who delivers the service.
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Mr Vincent O'Callaghan 6 years ago
We need a national state run railway that works for its users. Other European countries have successfully managed state railways. Why should the Government, ie Us, subsidise private companies to pay shareholders while they fail.
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Rukshana Afia 6 years ago
I'm old enough to remember British Rail and how we loved to complain about it . I have been shocked and appalled by how very much worse the railways have become since privatisation . Enough is enough - it is time to admit the failure of the private ideal and go back to a publicly owned system . Yes even with all the problems BR had !
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karl roome 6 years ago
current system is a complete shambles and only benefits shareholders not the passengers or public
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Ellen Thomas 6 years ago
Northern Rail offers an apauling service. Help is desperately needed to resolve the issue of the guards on the trains.
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Donald Baldwin 6 years ago
Why should the British rail users subsidise railways in France, Germany, Holland etc it stinks. At least we have East Coast back which should never been handed over to Virgin Statgecoach. East coast was making a profit for the tax payer. I believe that all essential services should be publicly owed and not handed on a plate to who ever and end up ripping off the public. I do not vote labour and never would while Corbyn is leader.
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Jane Brook 6 years ago
public transport is too important a service to be left to private ownership which inevitably puts profit before the public. e need a transport infrastructure that is ft for purpose, that is good enough , cheap enough, regular enough, reliable enough to entice people out of their air polluting cars and into public transport. We need a policy for rail services that a take risks and look to the long term good and not at short term profit. When the east coast line came back into pubic ownership recently, albeit briefly, the service was the best it had been in years - and it made a profit that could be re-invested back into the system. But it was sold off again on purely ideological grounds. Not good enough....
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Iain Reilly 6 years ago
The last few years has shown that privatisation does not work. People want a better deal from the railways with more investment and less waste through corporate dividends.
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Carly Jeffrey 6 years ago
Privatisation hasn't worked. Profits have been made for a few while the service declines and is reduced, and fares have gone up more than they should. In other European countries where transport is publicly run or heavily subsidised, their services are far better.
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Peter Underwood 6 years ago
Private profit and the interests of shareholders has always trumped the public interest and government has regularly bailed out failing firms. Time for proper public investment in a vital public asset - and that means public ownership.
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Graham Waldheim 6 years ago
If the French, Germans, Spanish, Italians and most other European countries can run fast, efficient, effective and cheap publically run railways then why can't we in the UK. It's nonsence that profits should be skimmed off to pay the shareholders in private rail companies (or foreign state owned railways where they operate in the UK) instead of reinvestment in UK railways.
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Peter Steward 6 years ago
The railways are a public service, and should be run as a nationalised rail service. Not putting profits intp private shareholders
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Jenny Wilson 6 years ago
I have had bad experiences where trains were running late and it was decided to stop the service and turn it around. To finish our journey of only a few miles we had to wait an hour. There were several other trains which could have enabled us to complete our journey but because they were run by other companies they wouldn't stop. Couldn't help but contrast this with a situation in Avignon when trains were stuck due to forest fires near Marseille. The station master was able to stop all trains coming through as SNCF is a national service! He had the platform cleared in no time and no grumpy passengers! We use trains a lot and it becomes ever more apparent that the stock is old and companies don't have enough in reserve.
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Joanne Dunsmore 6 years ago
Must have all public transport put in to the public's hands. trains cancelled, buses not turning up or come early and late fares are expensive certain stations in rural areas have been closed leaving passengers with no train service to rely on.
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Alan Hampson 6 years ago
Another major drawback of the 1997 privatisation, which was rushed through with little thought by a government that knew it was likely to lose the general election, has been the complete lack of co-ordination between regions, infrastructure, property and rolling stock sectors, the multiplicity of franchise holders, ticketing managers, maintenance contractors, and so on. It would have been difficult to imagine a worse way of arranging things. I have used the railways regularly since the 1960s, and in my experience, British Rail was never as bad, either as it was made out to be by a churlish media, or as the present (lack of) organisation. It is highly significant that in two world wars, the railway companies were placed under national control, as the only way to ensure efficient use and management of a vital transport resource. After both wars, nationalisation was mooted, but the first time, a compromise was reach by merging the 120-odd separate companies into just four. The second time resulted in the formation of British Railways, and it is often forgotten, or not realised, that BR was actually in profit for the first seven years (1948-55), until political dogma - not business sense - started the long decline towards mayhem again.
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Naomi Williams 6 years ago
I object to the shareholders in private companies getting huge dividends when the railways in this country are in such poor shape. Trains are overcrowded, often dirty, rarely punctual and horrifically expensive compared with those in other European countries. Surely we could do better.
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Ann Campbell 6 years ago
Privatisation has not proved to be efficient nor cost effective.Rail and connecting bus travel should be not for profit publically controlled.
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emma grant 6 years ago
Let's take the profits that private ownership squeeze out of the rail system and improve the network and customer experience.
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Katherine Dixon 6 years ago
We're subsidising private companies so they can make profits from failures. That is not efficient government. Take the railways back into public ownership and we can re-invest any money made, or if money is lost, at least we won't be funding companies to do that for us.
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John Woodland 6 years ago
I want our railways to be run by the UK without putting money into the hands of foreign investors who use the money to subsidise their own railways. We deserve a rail network of the standard of the rest of Europe with comparable fares and service.
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Martin Staley 6 years ago
Privatised railways do not work. The recent mess made of the East Coast franchise clearly shows this as once taken back into public control it flourished. It’s time to take our railways back to public ownership to protect the public from the profiteers that keep destroying the service.
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Colin Taylor 6 years ago
I remember a time, under British Rail, where I could go to my local station and know that I would pay a single price for my ticket, without having to navigate a jumble of different tariffs for different railway companies.
I also remember that British Rail Engineering was the envy of the world. Indeed, the Class 43 HST power cars, intended as a stop-gap until the Advanced Passenger Train came into service, are only now, after 34 years, being replaced. Since Privatisation, such innovation has been left to foreign companies, with consequent loss of advanced engineering expertise.
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Sandra Lawrence 6 years ago
Please put the Railways back into public ownership.
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Jacqueline Smith 6 years ago
The only way to keep railway fare increases affordable is to break-away from private ownership back to public ownership. Without shareholders receiving the profits, these can keep fares within reasonable increments in line with inflation, as well as more investment in better rolling stock (carriages). Also, Britain needs to keep the train companies in close liaison with network rail.
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Annie Sly 6 years ago
I object strongly to the idea that if trains are run by private companies introducing competition and bringing fares down for commuters!
This clearly does not work it’s been tried in the NHS hospital I live near and they could not run the hospital properly and have profits for shareholders
Public transport is a service people can’t get to work or anywhere without it. It is essential and should be owned by the public and any profits made should go back into the railways.
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Jan Birtwell 6 years ago
Public transport should be a service for the public not a means of making a profit for shareholders.
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Hilary Williams 6 years ago
I support the public ownership of the railways as an important utility. The current system has had a good go at it, but is just not working.
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Heloise Graham 6 years ago
Employ the correct managers and all that profit could go back to the railway.... See deuche bahn! Take the private away from our railways!
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Kay Densley 6 years ago
Other countries railway services are publicly owned and are far better and cheaper than ours. Rail fares and services are currently appalling and not fit for purpose.
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John Pritchard 6 years ago
I use the railways to visit family who live in many areas of the UK. It is also one of the biggest reasons why I do not see them as often as I would like. The price of a ticket has risen drastically over the years with no sign of relenting and has made it unaffordable for me to use on a regular basis
With the cost of living going up e.g. electricity, gas, food, rent. It is near impossible to make the wage I earn to last and I live on a budget where every penny is accounted for, so as not to overspend and go into debt. And please read me correctly here I am not counting every penny so I can afford a new car, holiday, or any other luxury item this is so I do NOT go into debt.
I am a labour supporter, I joined the party when Jeremy Corbyn came to the leadership contest and I have been a member ever since and will remain so.
I support him and the Labour policy of taking back into the public sector those industries that are essential to the running of a major industrialised country. Such as: public transport, energy providers and the health care.
All the above industries have privatised wholesale or through underfunding and selling of bit by bit such as the NHS.
The private providers have done nothing but run down the industries such as the railways by lowering the wages of the staff, not maintaining or updating the infrastructure and by taking the money and giving it to shareholders rather than reinvesting it back into the sector from which the money came.
It is time now that the railways where taken back into the public sector. The argument that the public sector can not do it as efficiently as the private no longer has any weight. The East Coast Railway was the perfect example of a failed private sector franchise that was taken back into the public sector and became one of the most trusted and well-run railway lines (one I used on a regular basis when I commuted from Berwick upon Tweed to Newcastle several times a week for college). The East Coast railway as I assume you will be aware was sold off into the private sector and failed miserably within a year and had to be bailed out at considerable cost to the tax payer again (a recurring trend with the private sector, the financial crash of 2008 being the biggest of them all since the great depression and again the poorest and weakest in society have had to pay for).
Many are tired of the old trope of private knows best, it does not. I t is time to rethink how the essential industries are run in the United Kingdom. Whether it is renationalised now or under an eventual Labour government that will be elected into office by people like myself fighting every step of the way. But rest assured it will happen and I hope you are the one to help make it happen and make commuters lives a lot easier by not seeing a huge chunk of their income gone each month for the privilege of an overcrowded, underfunded, overpriced train.
And I will end on appositive note I read an article that Luxembourg is set to trial a brave new initiative to tackle road congestion and climate change (one of the most pressing dangers of human history) and mark a cultural shift in their society from cars to public transport and reduce their carbon emissions.
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Alan Lowey 6 years ago
People not profit.
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Kelvin Mattock 6 years ago
An effective, coordinated national system for all of the nation. For all the people not useless and inconsiderate profit at the expense of the citizenry and the nation.
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J Allsebrook 6 years ago
People are making profit from our public services.
This is why travelers are not important on the railways.
Good government is about people being able to live without hinderence and problems being caused by profiteering.
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Charles Mapleston 6 years ago
When the East Coast Main Line had to be returned to public ownership because the private companies reneighed on their deal, it made a good profit under public ownership, which proves it can work. This should be extended to the entire network as the existing franchises naturally expire.
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Margaret McAlister 6 years ago
It makes common sense, like all the services moving from local to central points the outer edges of the community get side tracked, more and more, you watch it for years, like district councils, the places that the people who are supposed to be looking out for the community Live get better services, that is obvious, same with the buses the private companies get funding which goes to the shareholders and not to the infastructure, same with the railways, the companies that supposedly run the service, get the funding but it goes straight into the pockets of the shareholders.
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Aileen Hood 6 years ago
Many other countries have publicly-owned railways. Without having to pay shareholder profits, there is more money to invest in better services, better infrastructure, and lower fares. Our railways are over-priced owing to have to pay shareholders - and they deliver very poor service.
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Mary Doyle 6 years ago
How can we continue to 'reward' failure. We continue to suffer something less than a service yet pay the most in the world but receive probably the worst in the world. Quite a view of the U.K as we continue to subsidise road transport, but have pollution that breaks WHO guidelines in other countries. We have signed up to a 'carbonless economy' when is that going to happen & rail is part of the answer. Sadly at the moment it's part of the problem.
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Andy Woodgate 6 years ago
Rail privatisation has had very little to do with the huge increase in passenger numbers, which has instead been due to demographic change and commuting growth. We need to stop seeing public money siphoned off into shareholder profits and instead invest it in infrastructure and services. The railways belong in public hands as a strategic and socially essential utility. The privatisation experiment has failed - now is the time for renationalisation.
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Melissa Butcher 6 years ago
At present our train network is not fit for purpose. As someone who regularly uses trains in Europe, I can see that our network here is overpriced with poor local services and often poor rolling stock. On the other hand, public ownership has been shown to be efficient and profitable (eg when the east coast line was under government control). We need to renationalise with a vision for a truly national network that services local communities as well as urban centres, also keeping in mind a commitment to changing transport options as a means to a better environment.
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Rod Stapley 6 years ago
Our rail network is a natural monopoly and, as such, should be owned and run by a he state, who have a good track record at running the system when allowed.
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howard lane 6 years ago
Public utilities should be run for the all the public, not for investors. They need state funding and proper governance
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trevor d waywell 6 years ago
Im 77 and have seen the railways through the 40s 50s 60s and seventies' The present service on our railways is worse now than after the last war .
Trains were always on time a far better service than today's absolute chaos. Privatization is good for investors only completely ignoring the commuters who depend entirely on the service .This governments priorities are not for the commuter but huge cream offs for the richer Tory INVESTING voter.
Bring back public ownership of this once proud service .
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Brenda Hamblin 6 years ago
I am SO exasperated with Southern Rail. So many journeys have proved difficult, distressing, disastrous and very frustrating. No-one seems to hold them to account - and the fares have gone up AGAIN!
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Khadijah Moinie 6 years ago
I would love to use the train rather than my car for getting around, but it is just too expensive. So expensive that travellers have to be tempted with discount railcards. Soon only people of 30-60 years old will be required to pay undiscounted fares. Surely it makes sense to nationalise the railways and make rail travel affordable for everyone
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Daphne Bullock 6 years ago
The East Coast line was taken back into public ownership a few years ago. It improved dramatically, it was later handed over to Virgin and deteriorated rapidly. Trains were cancelled on a regular basis, food quality was much poorer. We now have LNER running the service under public ownership, again, there is already a noticeable improvement. Please, please, reinstate public ownership. Northern Rail are an absolute disgrace, 40 year old trains that are absolutely filthy and extremely overcrowded.
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Paul Rechnitz 6 years ago
We were told that subsidies would not be needed bacause of private ownership and investment. That hasn't happened. Instead, the subsidies have got ever larger with a sevice that is fragmented,too expensive, chaotic and unreliable .
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P Hanson 6 years ago
How is it that other state railways can run our system, but we cannot have our own state running our railways. In 1923 because there were too many separate railway company's, action was taken to simplify
the situation, with the botched privatisation of 1994 a similar situation was allowed to recur.
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Grant Ozolins 6 years ago
It would be a rare commuter today that would argue that privatisation has delivered for them. Nationalisation may not fix every problem, but a system that works for the people and is accountable to them is infinitely preferable to the situation today.
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simon ball 6 years ago
Got to be worth kicking privatisation into touch - and it gets rid of Chris Grayling too...
Gets my vote
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David Pracy 6 years ago
The worst thing about the railways is the fragmentation which means that millions of pounds are wasted on pen-pushers and bean-counters arguing the toss when things go wrong. Now the minister is 'Failing Grayling' who has a track record of doctrinaire privatisations such as the probation service, which then have to be reversed by the next minister. According to a recent BMG/Independent poll, even 56% of Conservatives are in favour of renationalisation. Please listen to the 76% who support renationalisation. Thank you.
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Rod Bailey 6 years ago
The railways have become dysfunctional from far too much fragmentation. Connecting services for example do not work when an arriving train has been delayed and the departing train may be fined for leaving late. The latter leaves the platform to avoid the fine even when the former is arriving meaning the individual passenger has to wait for his next service which can often be hourly.
We have ended up with a public service not serving the public! The individual train companies have no interest in serving the passenger!
The re-nationalisation would allow a return to greater integration and efficiencies because £millions are saved in the tendering process and profits to shareholders.
Railways are a service industry for the benefit of us all not the shareholders of the private company's.
Rod Bailey
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B price 6 years ago
It would be a good plan to make public transport public. As in owned by us for us. If you really want private ownership of transport so much then privatize private transport. Build no roads, mend no roads with public money. Put all roads out to tender and allow companies to own them and charge for travel on them. (Seem silly and unworkable? A hindrance to travel or movement of goods? Well der, of course! Just as it is for railways.) Do you get it? Only put into private hands things that are non essential, that matter not if they fail. In our railways, as in so many things rip off Britain is a laughing stock. (It is cheaper and very much quicker for me to travel by taxi than train.)
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Sara Strawson 6 years ago
I cannot agree more with most of the comments above and can only reiterate what others are saying. We are a laughing stock in so many ways. It is also essential that we have a public transport system that works and is affordable for everyone. If we want to move forward and try and avert the climate disaster that is looming we have to ensure this is possible. I, for one, can't afford to travel by train very ofter and that is a real treat. I have enjoyed the luxury of train travel for years - so much better than battling down the motorways and struggling through horrendous traffic. However, until it is public owned again we will not have an integrated and reasonable service. The public should be benefitting not shareholders!
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Lena Britton 6 years ago
The prices and services are unbelievable. The worst in Europe. And all in the name of profit. Shameless to exploit passengers like this.
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Joe Price 6 years ago
Let's get the railways back in British hands.
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Caroline Hope 6 years ago
I want public ownership because this would be in the public interest, and more profitable.
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Naomi Bowen 6 years ago
I am a very frequent train traveller, making use of a number of different train operating companies. Although I am retired, delays and cancellations can still cause me problems if I have an appointment to keep at my destination, or am being met by friends or family. However, the single biggest concern I have is overcrowding, even on off-peak trains, because some TOCs save money by refusing to lease sufficient rolling stock to accommodate all expected passengers and their luggage, even on routes that encompass a number of airport stops or call at popular tourist destinations. I believe public ownership would lead to improvements in both these areas, and would also contribute to a much needed simplification of ticketing and off-peak designations (which currently vary from company to company), plus improvements to timetabling - unlike the shambles experienced last summer! A single public provider would also prevent the buck-passing that wastes time and effort whenever something goes wrong ... I am old enough to remember (fondly) the days of British Railways when everyone knew where responsibility lay for dealing with any problems that arose, whether in track, signalling, driver shortage etc. and as a result such problems were dealt with promptly and economically. PLEASE USE YOUR REVIEW TO RECOMMEND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF THE RAILWAYS!
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Tess Green 6 years ago
Rail travel is an important public service which should not be left to private companies to provide. Safety and value for money would be better served in the public sector and staff pay and conditions would probably be better too.
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Jan Voisey 6 years ago
The railways and rail network should return to one publicly owned unit. This worked well pre-privatisation.
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Paul Taylor 6 years ago
Transport is a basic element of the country's infrastrucure all of which should be publicly owned and managed for the benefit of all. Surpluses would then go into investment rather than private profit.
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David Gibson 6 years ago
Those who peddle the privatisation dogma (because that is what it is) compare the present day Railway with British Rail of the 1960s. At the time of privatisation, British Rail was one of the most efficient and well-run railways in Europe. That is not just the view of people like us but it was a proven fact, and if BR was still in public hands it would have been many times better than the privatised network of today. Had the vast amounts of public money that have been thrown at the private rail companies been invested in BR, we would have had a Railway beyond our dreams. Privatisation is all about doing things down to the lowest price instead of up to an acceptable standard
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colin 6 years ago
I am absolutely sick of hearing of companies such as Virgin taking on the East-Coast rail franchise, and being paid for it, only to turn around in a few months and walk away from it, leaving the tax-payer to pick up the bill, and then for Virgin (or similar) to come back the next day and offer to run it again, and so we enter the same farce. Why should the tax payer take the risk, while the likes of Branson takes all of the profit?
The privitised model was set up to deliberately fragment the railways, leaving each private company with a monopoly, giving them a monopoly to print money. The whole model is broken and needs replacing with something that works. It is definitely time to return the railways to public ownership.
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Roberto 6 years ago
I worked on the Traffic side of BR(E). I watched dedicated BR workers do their job in keeping the four foot (safe) for stock to travel over. On the lines I've travelled on in recent years I wouldn't run a pushchair over some of the joints and tracks, and we pay them hard earned wages through fares for the upkeep of the PWAY. It's contracted out to other companies and should be back in workers pockets who are employed by public ownership, not spent on luxuries for themselves. Everybody is a chairman or a manager, there are no labourers.
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Linda Warman 6 years ago
It is wrong that we, the public, should subsidise railways in order that investors should profit. It is astounding that Mr.Grayling should plan to hand further contracts to private companies after huge government bailouts.
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Mark de Barr 6 years ago
The railways have become increasingly fragmented and unaccountable under private ownership.
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Mark King 6 years ago
Travelling by rail in the rest of developed Europe is a pleasure - inexpensive, uncrowded, straightforward, reliable, clean and user-friendly; the privatised rail systems in Britain, on the other hand, are an utter scandal - insanely expensive, packed to the gills, very complicated to navigate their ever-shifting routes and prices, thoroughly unreliable, ufailingly rude and unhygienic and focussed solely on extracting unworthy profits to benefit private owners and shareholders. Britain is leagues behind the rest of Europe in public services, especially transport, and this has everything to do with privatisation and the greed factor. It is shameful, it is not fit for service and is blatantly exhorbitant. God knows what foreign visitors, accustomed to smooth, affordable public transport, make of this outrageous scam that British passengers have to put up with. Britain is so much in retrograde now that our tawdry infrastructures snd public services are falling further and further behind the rest of the continent. Get all the private rail-route owners, subcontractors and off-shore share-holders out of public transport and RENATIONALISE NOW.
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John Smith-Warren 6 years ago
Having only worked for the privately owned Railway for 17+ years before retirement, the one thing that became more obvious the longer I worked was that having a fragmented system does not work and the longer it went on the worse the friction between each separate company became. And the more self interested each operator became. Departments have been set up to claim or counter claim for delays purely to look after the effect on that companies profits to the detriment of the passengers. In a modern country the people have a need to be educated, healthy and mobile to this end that means access to a public education system, a Public Health Service and a publicaly owned and operated transport system.
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Roderick Thirkell-White 6 years ago
My local line out of Waterloo (South Western Railways through Chiswick) changed franchisee about year ago, presumably because the new incumbents were 'more competitive'. This has meant a marked deterioration in the service : fewer trains running on time, more cancellations, and an intransigent dispute with the unions - admittedly inherited from the previous owners. Whatever else is going on, the tendering process isn't working - but the franchisees' profits don't seem to suffer.
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Klaus van den Kerkhoff 6 years ago
Public transport, especially railways, are part of the infrastructure and should be available and accessible, financially and geographically, to everyone. It is not a business for shareholders aiming to make profits.
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John Ashmore 6 years ago
The handing back of the east coast main line, and the consequent excellent public management and the improved service proved 'public' can do it better!! Also, with proper public accountability, public ownership will remove the unscheduled bailing out of private sector companies with taxpayers money, when they get their sums drastically wrong.
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Astrid Brown 6 years ago
The railways were nationalised in the first place because the private companies who ran them at the time took no notice of the users.
As now they were too busy worrying about profit and paying shareholders. The same thing has happened again. The sooner the rail service is nationalised the better for passengers. Public transport is what it's called transport for the public not something that is used to make shareholders money.
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Liz Wood 6 years ago
We need an integrated rail network that is run as a public service and not to benefit shareholders. All the profit made must be ploughed back in, and Government must invest, to upgrade the railway network and rolling stock, pay an adequate number of well-trained staff, in order to create a modern railway fit for purpose that will benefit industry and business as well as commuters and tourists and that will encourage people to travel by train instead of by car, thus reducing dangerous air pollution and congestion on our roads.
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Jan F 6 years ago
Privatisation hasn't worked, time to take the railways back into public ownership.
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Jackie Britton 6 years ago
Stop lining the pockets of the owners of privatised railways with public money. Take railways back into public ownership and recycle the takings into improvements.
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Andy 6 years ago
Rail privatization has been a failure on almost every level. It has failed in any significant way to improve punctuality; failed to improve infrastructure; failed to improve rolling stock; failed to improve safety and security. It is time to look again at all options.
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Patricia Marjory Jackson 6 years ago
As a youngster I travelled by train frequently. Since the railways were privatised there is no way I can afford this.
I believe they should be renationalised so that ordinary people can once again use their services.
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Jo Barwick 6 years ago
Services for the whole country are better run centrally. If our money is being used, then no money should be siphoned off to pay for several executives, who have tier hands in many businesses. For them they can just write any problems off against all their other businesses, whereas when something is run by the council it is run by people who actually use the service and understand what people need. Sustainability and pollution are important and these cannot be managed by separate companies, but need central decision making and clear financing, directly to the service itself.
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Stephen Collings 6 years ago
Stop the profits leaving this country and subsidising other countries networks, keep the profits here reinvest and run the service for the people.
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Phillip Ofield 6 years ago
The privatised system is totally broken, the time table is not in the national interest and too many private companies have ‘bought’ rolling stock that is not fit for purpose (Cross County under Virgin control) sanity need bringing back and lawyers throwing out! I work in the rail industry for BR and during privatisation, BR was far better run with what it had that any TOC today. What more the profits stayed in the UK, not sent to Berlin, Paris or The Hague.
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Grahame Bligh 6 years ago
I want public ownership of our railways because many of the trains are too overcrowded and expensive to travel on with yet another rise in fares this year. A poor service iof delayed and cancelled trains has been experienced far too often. It’s not acceptable for the public to asked to pay higher fares while the services don’t improve on many routes. While the profits of shareholders has increased the railway staff and train drivers are being blamed for latest fair increase by Chris Grayling use to union demand for wage increases. The travelling public are fed up with a private operators charging more for a poor service which is heavily subsidised by the government.
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Marie Walsh 6 years ago
It's just common sense - renationalise... and create an integrated, sustainable transport system for people not profit.
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Elizabeth Wood 6 years ago
We need a publicly financed, integrated railway system, run for the benefit of the public, not for shareholders, with adequate Government investment and where every penny made is ploughed back into the system to upgrade the rail network and the rolling stock, to pay a fully adequate number of well-trained staff (drivers, guards, engineers, maintenance workers ....)in order to create a modern railway that will stimulate business and industry as well as carrying freight and tempting ordinary travellers out of their cars (thus reducing dangerous air pollution and road congestion).
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Teresa Granner 6 years ago
Private rail is not working.The fares are continually going up, but the cost of living isn't. I am supposed to travel for my journalism, but the cost is ridiculous! So I have had to miss out reporting on several news stories because of it. Also people have been unable to move because of crowded trains which is ridiculous, not to say downright dangerous. Also Luxenbourg have scrapped their public transport fares all together. We should do the same.
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Doug Simpson 6 years ago
I note that, already, they're saying that trains on HS2 will be less frequent and will run more slowly to keep costs down. Had it been April 1st I would have thought someone was joking. This vanity project must be halted before it wastes any more money. Much needed upgrades to existing services - such as Trans-Pennine - should be put into effect as quickly as possible. Time for the people to make some decisions on these matters - not Failing Grayling and Co.
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Harry Percy 6 years ago
Privatisation was always about ideology not about making the railways work better for the customer. Most European countries have railways which work better than ours so we should look at the way that they achieve that to find a better model for the UK to run its railways in future.
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Linda Murgatroyd 6 years ago
People want reliability. CHoice is less important. If we had reliable services which serve more of the country well that would be a great improprement. The railways should be a core part of our national infrastructure so that people can get out of cars. This would improve air quality, help reduce régional inequalities and enable those who do need to travel by road to have less congestion. Let;s get freight and people back onto the railways . This can really only be done by renationalisation, as there will be a need for some services to subsidise others in the public interest.
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Dave Fyall 6 years ago
I live in the NE of England and the performance of the nationalised service on the East Coast mainline returning profits to the Nation was a contrast to the failure of ALL FRANCHISES agreed by our privatisation-obsessed Department of Transport.
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Benjamin Cowell 6 years ago
It was an absolute disgrace for British Rail to be privatised back in the 1990s and should have remained within public ownership. The railways in this country are a vital public service and should be nationalised as soon as possible.
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Julia Patrick 6 years ago
Cancelled trains! Impossible journeys when you can’t make connections because of lateness or cancellations! Packed dirty trains and no seats available! Not enough bike storage on trains! Unaffordable tickets! Shall I go on? Confusing prices! Disparity of price between online and in-person ticket sales; antique trains with no journey information displayed; lack of staff around to ask; poor security on trains; no trains whatsoever on Boxing Day, etc etc etc...
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Hugh Crozier 6 years ago
The railways serve a public interest and are too essential to be subject to the whims and profit motives of private companies. When properly funded, British Rail ran an excellent and up to date service.
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Bob 6 years ago
We've been kicked around since Beaching in the 60's. It's never been right since then. It's about time the public did the kicking..
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Robert MacCarthy 6 years ago
The railways were privatised by people who no longer believed in broad-based decision-making for the public good. They turned away from the challenge of supporting the democratic and accountable management of an essential feature of modern society and instead handed it to people at the top of the corporate world whose priorities are to maximise the return on their investment. Instead of paying those profits to remote shareholders or hiding them in tax havens they should be invested in the railways, in infrastructure and technology, in the skills and creative efforts of all who work in them. The railways used to be a source of national pride. Only in public ownership can they be a source of pride again. And what, truly, could be more important than that?
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Julie Jennings 6 years ago
Public transport is an essential service and should be publicly owned to ensure it provides a comprehensive and reliable mode of transport. Running the railways for the profit of shareholders is contrary to this core function. Public transport should be available at affordable cost to all - that includes trains, trams and buses. Public transport should be considered a service for all.
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William Johnston 6 years ago
Allowing private companies to run services is supposed to make them competitive. Since each railway company holds a monopoly over their particular franchise, this clearly is not the case. Even where services are duplicated - such as on sections of the Brighton mainline - people do not choose services out of any sort of loyalty, or even on price, but because they want the next available train.
To exacerbate matters, there is a constant conflict between the companies and Network rail, with each blaming the other for anything that goes wrong. If the network and the services are all under public ownership, then these sorts of disputes becomes meaningless.
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Alan Rose 6 years ago
It's disgraceful that Richard Branson's Virgin were allowed to slip out of the North East franchise without paying the contractual penalties! Talk about the old boy network - a scandal. Of course private companies will cherry-pick the most profitable lines while leaving the less profitable to the public to maintain. This is monopoly capitalism, not fairness and social justice
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Frederick Rodriguez 6 years ago
Definitely renationalise! Railways in state hands gives the government far more effective means to ensure that they are adequately maintained and that we all get a decent, effective, reliable and efficient service and control the fares from rising excessively. Then it will respond to needs rather than profit motives.
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Martin Stockwell 6 years ago
British Rail may have had its faults, but the current fragmented system has the same faults, while diverting money to investors, rather than into improving the infrastructure. It makes sense to have the whole rail provision in the hands of one organisation.
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Graham Warwick 6 years ago
We used to moan about British Rail, but, oh, how IK wish they were back. Fares would be cheaper, co-ordination of the network would be efficient and timetables would be maintained.
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Rebecca 6 years ago
An essential public service and natural monopoly cannot be run as a market-based for-profit business.
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John Breeds 6 years ago
Please release our railways from the need to create profits for shareholders and improve the service instead.
Yours,
John Breeds MBE
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Mark Bobbitt 6 years ago
If there is enough profit in our railways to garner interest from around the world then they should be renationalised so that profit becomes completely reinvested. Privatisation has now been lining the pockets of big business and shareholders for years and has provided nothing but misery for rail users. Bring it back!
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James Marsh 6 years ago
My wife and i travel on the railways approx once every 2 weeks. We have to change at Preston and its embarrassing to listen to the announcer apologising for lateness or cancellation on Northern Trains . With excuses like this is due to a train being taken out of service or there weren't enough drivers I dont know how they think them up because everyone is different do they have them written down in a book somewhere. I never new delays or crenelation of trains like this when it was British Rail and you were never jammed in like sardines there was always plenty of rolling stock and engines to replace a broken down one >The best thoing all round would be re nationalisation not more privateisation
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Adrian Howell 6 years ago
Nationalise the railways. It's the only answer. Read the comments above. Once nationalised, hopefully the roads will be a little bit quieter and the air will be a lot less polluted.
You know it makes sense...….the country has spoken!
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Peter Whalen 6 years ago
We need to take back control of our railways and run them as a public service. At the moment people are priced off them which is so wrong. Social ownership is the way forward to a faster, cleaner and greener service.
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chris earl 6 years ago
Private railway companies keep increasing fares, to make a profit for it’s shareholders, with no improvement for their users.
With current concerns about Climate change, how do you persuade people to use public transport over cars when travelling by car is the cheapest option! And often more reliable.
Keep railways in the public domain, services will be better integrated, and any money that is made goes back to the public funds.
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Jodie Adamson 6 years ago
I believe public ownership of the railways is an excellent idea. The east coast line was great when in public oownership and I feel happier paying for a ticket if I know the money will be invested for improving this public amenity rather than for private profit.
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Brin Wilson 6 years ago
I have no choice about my train service provider. There is only one station and one company running trains. It is a monopoly and a license to print money for leeches like Branson and Soutar and for foreign governments. Why is my overpriced ticket being used to subsidise fares in the Netherlands?
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John Hinchliffe 6 years ago
Since the railways were nationalised after World War Two, the Tories, who opposed nationalisation, have pursued policies to undermine that nationalisation. They do not care how the service operates, they simply have a political agenda that opposes nationalised industry and nationalised services despite the reality that privatised industry does not always deliver services efficiently. The NHS would have been totally privatised by the Tories except they know it would be electoral suicide - so they do it in bits and secretly so people do not notice. The Tories decimated the rail service in the 1960s removing less profitable lines (to prepare the network remaining for privatisation?), and Thatcher completed the job! The railways are a service that requires coordination and long term investment and long term commitment from government to maintain and develop the service for the benefit of service users, the economy, and the country. Until Tories question their belief in the ability of the free market to provide public services for the whole country then efficient effective rail services are doomed, as they will continue to undermine anything they consider as a socialist enterprise.
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Nick Windsor 6 years ago
Please, please ask the award winning Economics Professor Marana Mazzucato to be an adviser for this review. She is insightful, intelligent and a world authority on private vs public sector organisations. I understand that the railway operators are subsidised by the Government beyond that of when it was State Owned, this cannot be a morally just way to operate a Nation's infrastructure.
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David Walker 6 years ago
Privatisation merely provides an opportunity for greedy people to enrich themselves at the expense of the public and to the inconvenience of users. It is essential that the notion of public service return to the heart of our society's belief system.
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Alan Burnett 6 years ago
Under the present privatised regime, rail services are frequently cancelled, terminated or started at an interim station, often with seat reservations cancelled.As a result, people are using their cars instead of the train because they need reliability. I randomly check the National Rail app for different stations on the network and I see a railway that fails to deliver every day of the week. Public ownership is the only sensible way forward.
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Alan Trangmar 6 years ago
Every time East Coast Main Line is in publis ownership, it works. Every time it is privatised, it gets problems. Moral: keep in the public sector. (Govia Thameslink is another good example of a private company displaying great incompetence)
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Gabby Taylor 6 years ago
Passengers deserve to know that the rail fares they pay are going to be invested in maintaining and improving the service they rely in stead of being siphoned off to provide dividends to shareholders.
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david honeybell 6 years ago
Public transport should be just that, PUBLIC OWNED. PUBLIC FUNDED. and PUBLIC RUN. Managers should be appointed
who believe in running public transport for the passengers, and not for private profiteers to line their pockets.
And the same principal applies to all public services, ELECTRIC GAS and WATER. All essential services should be
owned by the public. How have we let the situation get as bad as this? Privatisation must be stopped, and reversed.
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Gary Joseph Rowlands 6 years ago
Money cannot be allowed to be taken from the system and into the pockets of shareholders, every penny must be ploughed back in to improve the service, it's got a long way to go before it can be called fit for service.
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Katharine Kite 6 years ago
Private car ownership is the same price now as 20 years ago. Public transport is over 60% more expensive than 20 years ago. We are in a climate and biodiversity meltdown, air pollution is killing us and public money is being squandered on more roads to ease 'congestion'. We have congestion cos of too many private vehicles. More roads means more private vehicles and more congestion. We pay overhikes for public transport to line the pockets of shareholders. This enslavement to ideology is benefitting the richest and disenfranchising the poorest and we wonder why we have a fractured society. Public ownership to enable superior and fairly priced transport is more than just about transport. It's about a far more pleasant environment, less destruction and more opportunities for more people. Please get on with it.
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Sam 6 years ago
Travel by public transport is too expensive, and there has been too,little investment in the last 40 years. Public ownership would mean all profit put back into the services, meaning better and cheaper service. We cannot afford a season ticket, yet have to get to work. The current service is v bad indeed, overcrowded, over-priced, poor standards.
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Jeff Moore 6 years ago
Public ownership is the only way the railways can work, so long as the bean-counters in Whitehall aren't in control, because like most accountants they know the cost of everything, but the value of nothing.
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Fiona Hobbs Milne 6 years ago
The railways are one of our most important and valuable public services, yet passengers are very obviously not a priority at the moment, and the experience of catching a train is far too often a nightmare: expensive, uncomfortable, cramped, delayed, cancelled. Shareholder profits will always come first if the trains are operated by private companies.
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Alison 6 years ago
Publicly owned railways are the way to go. It makes sense to plough profits back into the railways to provide a better service for passengers, by keeping trains updated and repaired, to maintain tracks, and to generally improve on the service delivery and journey times.
Private ownership puts money in the back pockets of shareholders, provides a dissatisfactory service for the many thousands of users when paying commuters have to stand for the entire journey. Not only is this totally unsuitable, it is downright dangerous in the event of an emergency stop/accident
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Jane M 6 years ago
As a former bus conductor and regular user of buses and trains, I really feel passionately about public transport. It is a public service and should be run to benefit the public not make massive profits for private companies and shareholders, nor should it help the pension schemes of other countries. I'm fed up of paying ludicrous amounts to sit on cold platforms and bus stops for buses and trains that either don't arrive or turn up late and already full. The fares are absurdly high. It cannot be right that it is cheaper to fly from Bristol to Glasgow than to go by train. With different companies running different lines nothing is properly co-ordinated. I say re-nationalise them and ringfence ALL the profits to improve the services. Privatisation has been a total shambles and enough is enough.
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Stewart Lauder 6 years ago
The issues with the train operating companies are only part of the overall problem with railways in the UK.
In my opinion, I believe there needs to be sweeping changes throughout the industry as a whole, including senior management within Network Rail and the Civil Service. Public ownership can only be a success with those who want it to be a success and who whole heartedly believe in public services for the benefit of everyone. Malignant management and cultures need to be eradicated and fresh, constructive, forward thinking approaches taken.
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K Noble 6 years ago
Our railways should be an integrated service run for the benefit of the public and not to make profits for shareholders. With efficient public transport the health of both our people and our economy will improve.
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Tom Wood 6 years ago
I want to see the railways in public ownership so they can once again be run as a genuine public service. Whereas freight is important it cannot, except in exceptional circumstances, take equal or priority access over passenger services. There needs to be sufficient excess of staff, vehicles and infrastructure to allow for maximum flexibility where unforeseen incidents occur to allow the travelling public to experience the minimum of disruption by the provision of extra trains / carriages. Management structures need to empower,facilitate and support staff at the coal face to make real time decisions with regard to connection policies etc without fear of discipline because of fines or costs for "Delay Minutes" etc. The current wholesale cancellation of services and inconvenience to those travelling at a particular time just so as to get the timetabled service back with minimum inconvenience to the operators and other "Customers" (freight) is unacceptable.
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Mark Taylor 6 years ago
It's a public service run as part of the transport infrastructure of a first world nation for the benefit of the citizens of our country and visitors to GB. Not for the short term profit of world wide corporate companies and shareholders. Our railways should be the people's railway. Time to give it back to the people of Britain.
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David Hall 6 years ago
The system at present is too fragmented - connections are fequently missed as one company will not hold back a train so it can meet passengers from another company's train. Profit is siphoned off to company heads and shareholders instead of being reinvested. Far too many companies are involved in owning and running trains, and not enough is spent on infrastructure. Too much freight is carried on the roads instead of much more safely on the railways. With a unified network, we could manufacture our own trains again, instead of exporting profits and manufacturing jobs abroad.
Give us back a state-run railway. Incidentally, why is it OK for our trains to be run by state-owned companies, so long as they are not British? German, Dutch, French.....
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SM 6 years ago
As soon as these services were privatised their prime focus was on profit rather than efficiency. Prices have gone up year on year despite falling standards and reliability. It's time for rail to return to public ownership.
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Alan Whittaker 6 years ago
railways are a public service and as such any money generated should be ploughed back in to the system, not taken out as profits or dividends
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Anne Fearon 6 years ago
The East Coast lline seemed to be working well under public ownership, and made a profit for the public purse rather than for shareholders. When it was re-privatised, it failed again. The only sensible policy is to keep the East Coast line in public ownership and to re-nationalise other lines when their franchises run out
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Ron Cross 6 years ago
I used to enjoy leisure railway journeys, but never had much spare time to do it.
Now that I'm retired, I find that I cannot afford the exorbitant fares being asked.
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Anonymous 6 years ago
The network last year was a complete shambles and it's time it was turned over to public ownership to take control. Almost double the price of tickets on certain lines so one company running the railways would put a stop to these extortionate rates and give us a fair system.
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Maria Pizzey 6 years ago
The most economic and beneficial way to provide public services is to remove the need for third party profits. Public transport is an essential element of successful infrastructure and in increasingly crucial to help fight the planet’s greatest threat of climate change. The railways need to be paid for by the many, for the benefit of the many, not the few who own, operate and own shares in it.
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Steve Hoyland 6 years ago
Private ownership of rail franchises has consistently failed the general public. The railways need to be back in public ownership as in much of Europe.
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John Yates 6 years ago
I was a daily rail user from the age of seven,initially travelling daily to school and then to work from age 18.Now at a pensioner of 81, the high cost of rail travel is nigh impossible ;it scares me although I would still like to travel like I used to. Travel broadens your mind and keeps you young . Public ownership and lower costs would make life better and cheaper!
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Karolyn Truelove 6 years ago
We need a rail system run for the benefit of passengers, not shareholders
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Stephen Clarke 6 years ago
The evidence is not there to support the view that privatised railways run as well as they did here under British Rail.
In times of threatened climate change we need every strategy to increase numbers of people and goods taking the train, as opposed to individual cars, and that kind of environmental concern is not something that more than a tiny few private companies have ever shown.
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MarkB 6 years ago
If private ownership is supposed to be so efficient, then why is 3 times more public money being spent on the railways, than when they were publicly owned.
https://fullfact.org/economy/government-funding-rail-industry-bbcqt/
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David Robinson 6 years ago
What we have now, is not fit for purpose, successive governments have dodged the issue in favour of letting private companies make obscene profits, without putting anything back in
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Maggie Lewis 6 years ago
Railway investment beggared by previous conservative government, is beginning to get back on its feet, but a long way to go. Paying shareholders doesn't make sense. Government ownership would need careful scrutiny and sufficient independent caretakers to protect this valuable public service. I do not wear rose tinted glasses but we could at least return to a simpler system of ticketing.
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Alyson Fisk 6 years ago
Railways should be a public service and should not be seen as a private enterprise to be run for the profit of shareholders.
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Margaret Adams 6 years ago
The railways are an essential public service, like so many others including the roads which so far are almost all still public, and should be paid for by general taxation: Rail is much preferable to the crowded, dangerous, polluting roads, for both freight and as a public transport system for everyone if fares were reduced as in the rest of Europe where of course they have state-owned railways. This would enable more travel by those who cannot afford or do not want a car, could reduce car ownership, particularly in urban areas, reduce lorries, and result in much less pollution and fewer adverse climate change effects. I remember the publicly owned British Rail provided a good, integrated service and at much lower cost than the current privatised system which is fragmented not "joined up", in which individual companies are "not responsible" but blame each other for failures, where profits are taken out instead of being reinvested, where the ticketing and pricing are obscure and complicated, and where companies have a win/win, keeping profits but bailed out by the taxpayer, because it is an essential service, when they fail. The public East Coast mainline ran a good service (Iused it) and made good profits which went to the UK Treasury, but failed in private hands not once but twice, was bailed out at our expense twice and then privatised again - this is wanton ideology. As is not allowing public bodies such as the successful East Coast even to bid (public cannot be seen to succeed), but allowing bids from foreign state railways, so the Dutch, German and French states can own our franchises and run our railways but our state cannot. As with our other once public now private services, such as water, electricity (including nuclear now mainly built/run by the French and Chinese!), the NHS,..... this is surely against our strategic national interests, especially when even our European friends will just be competitor countries after Brexit.
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Pippa Richardson 6 years ago
Our railways are too important to the people of Britain to be in the hands of private companies who just want to make profits, and fail to invest in a quality service. In Wales, it is shocking how the recent private franchise holders neglected stations and rolling stock. Elsewhere, passengers are also receiving bad service. I want to see railways in public hands getting the investment they deserve.
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Robert Ormerod 6 years ago
If you have ever travelled on Cross Country trains between the south coast and Manchester you will know how bad the system has become. When I complained to the guard about the overcrowding he blamed the German government.
How have we got into such a ridiculous situation where most of our trains are being run by state backed European companies which are subsidised by the UK government?
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Mike Bowden 6 years ago
Some years ago I looked into finance of the railways. At that time the biggest take was by lawyers. There were multiple contracts between government, the rail companies, between companies and with the rail owners, all regularly renegotiated and renewed. The second biggest spend was on leasing trains, the trains were owned by the banks and leased to the operators. Third biggest take was directors emoluments and dividends. So the whole system is inefficient and less effective than it can and should be. I doubt it has changed much.
This is true of most government privatisations. In the NHS admin costs went from 3% to 15% with the 1980's internal market and are at 20% with the current (unfinished) privatisation. Do we really want to spend one pound in four on clerks pushing paperwork around?
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JasonClements 6 years ago
There are enormous inefficiencies in splitting the rail network into many franchises. If it were brought under one publicly-owned organisation, there would be great savings in tendering for contracts, monitoring performance and shifting costs between the different elements. And of course, the profits currently paid to shareholders could be reinvested in the service.
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Andy Hamilton 6 years ago
As others have pointed out the UK privatised railways provide a poor service. Our railways are expensive and inefficient compared to French and German railways which i frequently use.
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alan chapman 6 years ago
It's been widely reported that 18 out of 25 UK rail franchises are run by foreign state-backed corporations. Foreign states/investors are not doing this for the economic health of the UK; they are doing it because ownership/investment creates substantial financial return for themselves. Separately, evidence both anecdotal and researched (it's all widely available online) generally reflects that UK railways are more expensive, less reliable, less connected/integrated, and much slower (between big cities especially) than the top performing European nations' railway services. So, we have a fragmented inferior railway service compared to the leading 5-7 nations of Europe, and the profits gained from running it are almost all going out of the UK. Decades ago the privatisation ideology/obsession might have made some sense, albeit very tenuously. The world was very different then, and all economic models are of a certain time, and then they become obsolete and counter-productive. In the modern world there is a need to be much more socially responsible. The past 20 years have proven that healthy societies are not about 'wealth creation' and the mythical nonsense of a nation of share-holders of profit-driven plcs. 'Wealth creation' and the free-market economy in truth creates vast wealth for very few people, and of course to the disadvantage of everyone else, notably staff and customers (the people who fund and enable the 'wealth creation'). The modern world, and the increasing pressures on societies, services and economies, mean that we must be now much more ethical, sophisticated and inclusive in how we value and operate our essential services and utilities. Railway services are not like supermarkets, car dealers, or online retailers, for which we have a wide choice. Railways are a monopoly, and also are an absolutely and increasingly crucial part of people's lives, and most certainly, when we consider road traffic congestion and pollution, of the health of people and planet too. Taking the railways back into social/national ownership is not just about quality or reliability or price; it's about the type of country we want for ourselves and our children. Do we want a nation whose vital services are run exclusively and determinedly to extract maximum profit out of our society (typically benefiting a very few faceless already obscenely wealthy people, who naturally put profit first), or do we want a nation whose vital services are run exclusively and determinedly for everyone in our country, where all 'profit' is reinvested for the good of the service, staff and customers, and the development of infrastructure/technology? The situation surely speaks for itself, and the railway companies must be taken back into social/national ownership. The question is then simply doing the maths to compensate the current ownerships, taking very firm account of how little the private sector paid for these assets in the first place, the vast profits that have been extracted, and the serious shortfalls in investment and development that must now be made good.
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Jack Nilsen 6 years ago
Public ownership of rail is essential if we are to see lower fares and better services.
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Safir 6 years ago
It's time for full renationalisation of railways and utilities.
Privatisation means people pay higher charges and higher bills for privatised services then pay more money through tax used for government subsidies to privatised companies and customers pay even more for improvements whilst funding executive salaries, shareholder dividends and private profits.
Even worse some owners of privatised utilities have had billions of pounds of corporate debt loaded on to formerly debt free privatised utilities that results in higher bills for all customers including those on low incomes.
Some privatised companies have even used offshore tax havens.
It's time for public ownership by the people, with the people for the people, it's time for full renationalisation.
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Nigel James 6 years ago
I believe that public transport is best provided 'publicly' not private companies who need to generate profits for shareholders ahead of the public good. I believe too that we would get better value for money.
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Graham Marsden 6 years ago
Why are our "privatised" railways owned in large part by European *State* owned companies? Why are we subsidising their networks?
Money invested in the railways and paid by travellers should generate profits which are returned to finance the network, not put into the pockets of those who do not even ride in the trains.
Privatisation has been a failure, it's time to take back control of them(!)
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Ruth Richardson 6 years ago
Breaking up the railway system was a really stupid idea that hasn't worked. The old way of allowing the funds earned to go back into the kitty, instead of sucking the system dry for shareholders, was a better system, and something the public supported.
What we have is a broken system. Privatisation doesn't work!
The railways should be unified, and under public control, a service to the whole country.
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Ian Hopley 6 years ago
I'm not totally against free market competition, but the minute you need a "regulator", you cease to have a free market. All you have, is a cynical parody of a free market as a means of making money for shareholders. If I want to take the train to london, I can use Virgin or... Virgin.
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Helen Austerberry 6 years ago
Railways are a public service so lets own the service and operate it in the interests of the many. Private providers benefit from creaming off the easy money that monopolies gift them. Under public ownership services can be planned and co-ordinated, and innovative systems of control and management can be initiated involving workers, passengers and local communities. The money that funds the network from passenger and taxes can be used for the public good not wasted on shareholder profits and bloated executive salaries.
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C Critchley 6 years ago
As we move into a fifth the way through the 21st century, the predominance of the digital economy has rendered movement from domicile to place of work, irrelevant. Oh, did I get that wrong? An economy which relies on the transportation of workers from one place to another must provide, without exception, a means so to do. If this is an incorrect observation, simply let these irrelevant 'services' stop, for they are surplus to requirements. No services. No provision. No companies. No profit. No necessity. If you believe our 'commonwealth' deserves minute attention, then you'll be wanting 'route & branch' revolution. #ToriesOut
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Brenda Lock 6 years ago
Privatisation of the railways has been a disaster. Railways should be in public ownership and run for the benefit of the public not for shareholders.
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Richard Smart 6 years ago
The British railway system should always have been in public hands. It is a public service and as such should be run for the benefit of the public, not for private investors and shareholders. Public ownership is the only justifiable way forward.
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Isaac R-G 6 years ago
Public transport should be a public good, with investment guaranteed to help make society more equal by increasing availability of opportunity.
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Nick Tidiman 6 years ago
It is essential that the use of rail grows and grows to reduce the strain on the environment. It is also imperative that the rail network is affordable, integrated and efficient and to do this it must be a public owned service for the good of the public.
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Stephen Riggott 6 years ago
About time we had a say about our Railway System! These "Leeches", that call themselves "franchisees", who've borrowed our once wonderful railway, have sucked out enough dividends and cash to last a lifetime, and then they have the cheek to cry that they can't fulfil their contract, leaving the taxpayer to bail them out!!! I've worked for the railway for many years, both under public ownership, and also during the privatised era, and I can tell you, quite categorically, that 'Nationalised' beats 'Fragmented' any day of the week!! Time and time again it has been shown, that when the Private Companies fail, and the franchise passes back to Government Control, it's been a success story and, miracle upon miracle, it actually becomes a good service again, makes a profit which goes back into the exchequer to invest in the improvement of the railway system! Please Bring Back British Rail and start the transition back to an affordable, sustainable and more efficient system, at last!!!!
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Robert Johnson 6 years ago
Privatised rail services have led to much higher fares and a poorer service. Only a publicly owned railway network can deliver the modern and efficient integrated transport system the UK needs.
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Gerald McGowan 6 years ago
The privatised company that ran GNER could not make a profit and was re-nationalised as the only sane alternative. It, and all the other companies that are complained about, should be re-nationalised and the profits that are paid to their shareholders should be used for the good of all the travelling public.
If we needed another reason then Chris Grayling comes to mind!!
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Anonymous 6 years ago
Private rail companies have made an expensive shambles of our railway system. At a time when public transport is desperately needed, to help save the planet, our railway system is unpredictably over-priced and unreliable.
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Simon Smith 6 years ago
The privatisation of the railways and a deliberate fragmenting of the accountability for their running has been a disaster. Pure ideological ignorance.
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Mavis Williams 6 years ago
Privatisation isn't working for passengers. We need to renationalise our railways.
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Jill Spicy 6 years ago
Abellio Greater Anglia is Dutch/Japanese owned, whose own trains are pristine and cheap to travel on, very unlike the ones in use here.
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Dawne Brown 6 years ago
The railways are a public service we pay for the profits should be used to improve the service, not subsidise private companies or foreign organisations public services. Private companies cannot run the railways efficiently or provide an adequate service they are more interested in profit lines. When the east coast line was taken into public ownership, the service improved.
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Trevor silkstone 6 years ago
Too many other foreign powers are in charge of our transport and Railways, we need to confiscate this power they have, and the money they cream off for selves. Since being in the EU all of our best industry has been sold away to foreign investors who don't give a shit for the British Public. The railways need to be back in public ownership, and the money intended for HS2/3 should be spent on refurbishing some old systems and making the transport system fit for the common man to use on a daily basis.
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APRIL BROWN 6 years ago
its been run badly.It's a public service and should be run for the public service.
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Roushan Martens 6 years ago
Private companies have been a disaster for rail travel, with costs and services becoming increasingly poor for passengers.
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Stuart Aken 6 years ago
Privatisation has proved a disaster. Never has there been so much dissatisfaction with the railways system. Timetables are difficult for passengers to follow, the multiple fare tables make travellin by train a nightmare. We need a centralised, cohesive railway system fit for a future where public transport will be more and more necessary if we're to fulfil our country's carbon reduction promises. The current system, run for profit, is inefficient, fragmented and unfit for purpose. Let's take the railways back into public ownership and make them great again.
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Barry Metcalfe 6 years ago
Private Rail Companies are run for profit, not for the public benefit. I find them to expensive to use. I live 5 minutes walk from a station on the Euston to north west line about 35 miles from London and as a pensioner cannot afford to use it. Unfortunately by bus it is 4 bus rides away and a twenty mile detour, taking several hours to complete, so the train services have a virtual monopoly.
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A. M. Reeve 6 years ago
When East Coast was taken back into public ownership the service was much improved and also the staff were happier.
The privately owned railways are in a bad way, and the need to remove money for shareholders can only make things worse.
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Arte 6 years ago
The claim that privatisation helps businesses be more efficient and better for all is plainly wrong when considering the railways. Why not bring them back under public ownership and try to clean up the mess that it currently is? Having foreign investors making money off of our need to use public transport is a disservice to citizens living here.
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Jenny Reid 6 years ago
Privatisation has been a disaster, allowing the trains and services to deteriorate whilst becoming ever more expensive.
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Gail Parker 6 years ago
At the moment, all the financial risks sit with the public while shareholders reap the benefits. Also, there is too much inconsistency allowed in service provision across the different providers.
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Michael Coulson 6 years ago
We pay more for a badly run service than we would for a good one because companies can pass on the cost of delayed or cancelled trains (replacement bus services or taxis, fines) by increasing fares). We need railways that put people not first!
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Jeremy Hall 6 years ago
My beneficial owners of my railway are the Dutch tax payers. Why can't the British people be the beneficial owners.
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melvyn dalley 6 years ago
Public services are vital ,not making profit for share holders , any money made should be put back into the service.Let it be run fairly and in full public ownership
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julia blake 6 years ago
Reinvest in public services and stop public money being sifted out via private enterprise. Privatization is a failure, only profiting shareholders whilst the public is paying twice for that privilege, first by way of subsidies and then being grossly overcharged for the service. Other European countries run fantastic public services and customers pay a fraction of the price we in the UK do, we could learn a lot and enable greater equality and a country that actually works for the many, not the few but instead, the UK government chooses to uphold an outdated and corrupt elitist establishment that wishes to create slaves to the economy for the people whilst the fat cats sit back and reap the rewards. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH..let's really take back this country for the people, for the many, not the few.
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Jane C W 6 years ago
The railways were nationalised after the War to serve the nation, until in recent years they were sold off to make a profit for a few people at the expense of passengers and where services have become increasingly shambolic. The railways and other transport systems must come back under public ownership to be run efficiently and affordably for the people, as they are in other parts of Europe today.
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Roy Koerner 6 years ago
Privatisation has meant that the railways are run for short term profit. This means cutting costs to the minimum and not building in enough space capacity to cater for excess demand.
There is also no incentive to coordinate timetables between rail companies and local bus operators.
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Caroline Snow 6 years ago
Our public infrastructure should be owned by the public for the benefit of the public.
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Sue Tame 6 years ago
We need a subsidised, integrated public transport system.
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John stewart 6 years ago
A privatised rail system has failed massively particularly in rural areas where train services are almost non existent, it is time to bring all rail ack into public hands and run it as a public service for everyone, not just a money tree for th shareholders of private companies or worse overseas countries benefiting from the profits made to improve there systems, invest any profit back into the system here and build a system that works and is accessible for everyone.
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Helen Pearson 6 years ago
To run public services for private profit is an oxymoron. It must infuriate rail users that a small number of individuals are receiving huge bonuses instead of that money being used to improve services and keep fares reasonable. In its five years as East Coast, the state-run firm returned a little more than £1bn in premiums, as well as several million in profits, to the Treasury. Detailed financial analysis from the Office of Rail Regulation shows it was one of two firms to make a net contribution to government coffers; it also received overwhelmingly positive passenger feedback. After it was last privatised, it only ran under Stagecoach/Virgin for three years before being put back in public hands after record losses. Running public services for private profit only works for the shareholders; everyone else, including taxpayers who bail out loss-making companies, is impoverished.
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Angela 6 years ago
The evidence shows that since privatisation the railways have performed appallingly. We need an efficient service that works for everyone. This will encourage more people to use it thus reducing congestion on our roads. There are so many positives to putting the railways back into public ownership.
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Mark Allen 6 years ago
East Coast Mainline and Northern Ireland Railways have both show how much better a railway service can be in public ownership.
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Penny 6 years ago
I am a frequent train traveller, nowadays mostly for leisure and longer distance. I believe the ridiculous franchising system results in inefficiency, lack of co-ordination and a huge waste of public money. There is enormous cost involved in tendering and managing (badly) the contracts. Any change results in expensive branding changes and an outrageously complex ticketing system. A ticket I purchased recently I managed to reduce from £93-30 to £24-60 by ticket splitting. I resent the fact that I have to waste time like this but most of all I'm concerned for people who can't do this for some reason
Public ownership doesn't have to be a monolith. Private investment is ok (cf Deutsche Bahn) but control should be with a single public body fully accountable to us, the public.
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Penny 6 years ago
I am a frequent train traveller, nowadays mostly for leisure and longer distance. I believe the ridiculous franchising system results in inefficiency, lack of co-ordination and a huge waste of public money. There is enormous cost involved in tendering and managing (badly) the contracts. Any change results in expensive branding changes and an outrageously complex ticketing system. A ticket I purchased recently I managed to reduce from £93-30 to £24-60 by ticket splitting. I resent the fact that I have to waste time like this but most of all I'm concerned for people who can't do this for some reason
Public ownership doesn't have to be a monolith. Private investment is ok (cf Deutsche Bahn) but control should be with a single public body fully accountable to us, the public.
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Michael Fields 6 years ago
Why should we continue to let (mostly) foreign companies make profits from our railways while they provide diminishing standards of safety and efficiency in return? The government is deliberately running down all public services in order to sell them off, which is not in the interest of the ordinary people of this country. It can be done better for us!
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Rob Dixon 6 years ago
Privatisation is not and should not be the only option for running the railway... especially when the franchises are largely run by other countries' state railways!
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David Farrelly 6 years ago
The UK railways were privatised in 1993/4. It was stated and clearly envisaged that two things would happen. Firstly, that the discipline and efficiency of the private sector would improve rail services and service delivery. Secondly, that rail subsidies from the tax payer would be tapered down due to the effectiveness of new business centred leadership of our railways.
The reality has been that costs, subsidies and fares have risen exponentially. Performance has never exceeded the 1994 levels achieved by British Railways. Furthermore deterioration in services, costs and efficiency have also been self evident. Control, leadership and oversight are and have been weak from the DfT, Network Rail and private enterprises. The franchise system has failed despite several reviews and direct interments from the government.
Renationalisation is popular with taxpayers, rail users, unions and the general public. We have had enough of inept leadership and empty promises of new investments that will at some uncertain point in the future promises us a decent and fit for purpose 21st century railway network.
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William Hawkins 6 years ago
Public transport should be for the benefit of the public (it's even in the name!) and not for the benefit of private, greedy companies or shareholders.
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S K SMITH 6 years ago
The railways work for the good and benefit of all best as a public service and it makes no sense at all to have private companies competing for profit. No only does it make no sense but there is also the non-market place question of the tax-payer being used as a handy insurance policy by the government when companies fail. Further, the split up system is ridiculous and inefficient. It is a night mare to book journeys and there is no truly accountable customer service. Privatisation of the railways is a broken system that should never have happened in the first place.
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Sam Monk 6 years ago
I strongly support renationalising the railways. Re-nationalisation will enable profits to be invested back into improving the service, including the electrification of the north, rather than going into the pockets of shareholders. As the need to confront climate change becomes more pressing we need a viable, efficient and functioning railway that is affordable for all. Re-nationalisation will help to achieve this.
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Anthony Conway 6 years ago
Fragmentation of the railways has worsened services for all. Services are nolonger run when people wish to use them outside of commuter services. These services are used as cash cows for share holders. There aren't enough staff and lack of joined up services mean that employees of different companies cannot assist. Ticket prices don't make sense with costs per mile being exorbitant in many cases. There is no accountability for the service. Bring back into public service.
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Sonali Bhattacharyya 6 years ago
We are reaching crisis point with the climate, but instead of investing in an efficient, reliable and affordable rail service - the only way to reduce people's reliance on cars in the UK - the government have allowed private companies to run the railways into the ground, with overcrowded trains, fares so high they're unaffordable to many, and an extremely unreliable service. Railways need to urgently be returned to public ownership.
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Geoff Weaver 6 years ago
The success of the East Coast line under public ownership has set a precedent.Grayling must follow the logic and return the railways to public ownership.
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Alastair Young 6 years ago
Functioning efficient transport please. The privatisation shambles doesn't offer choice or service for the public. No arrangement on a "for profit" basis can work.
Bring it back.
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Gary Clarke 6 years ago
The privatisation of the UK's railways has clearly been a failure. It has led to a fragmented system with poor service and extortionately high fares. The rail companies are putting shareholders before passengers. I am a regular user of trains as I do not drive and the fares are way too high. On longer journeys it is prohibitively expensive if I do not book in advance.
I would very much like to see the railways in the UK brought back into public ownership and I believe opinion polls show the public support this by about 58-60%. Therefore, there is a clear majority for brining the railways back into public ownership and this is the logical thing to do.
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R D Dalgleish 6 years ago
British Rail Intercity 125s built last century are still in regular main line use to deliver profits to people who choose not to invest in designing better trains. How long can this exploitation continue? There is only one rail system. It is a natural monopoly best suited to single ownership. Who should the single owner be? The passengers who use the system.
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Nick Avins 6 years ago
We need to stop the gravy train of European state companies running our trains and go back to a public railway. BR built the finest trains such as the Mark 3 and 4 which were comfertable and had seats that lined up with the windows! BR suffered from lack of investment by the Tory goverment so I do think it is unfair to say public owned rail was a bad thing. Despite all this, Intercity and Network Southeast operated with no subsidys, something the alleged wonderful private operators seem unable to do.
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Chris Clarkson 6 years ago
Why do the government believe having overseas railway companies as shareholders is a good idea? It effectively means that we are subsidising overseas railways!
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Graham Woodward 6 years ago
Privatization has been an abysmal failure since its inception under the Thatcher government and was inspired by the likes of sir Alan Walters of the Adam Smith Institute who thought that the US model would suit this country and more to the point enrich an elite few by stealing assets off of the tax payer. Since then and even after then successive governments including so called New labour have carried on the process of stealing from the tax payer and thus all of us, and not being content with that added the iniquitous PFI to it. Essential Utilities and transport should never have been privatized in the first place and we have all payed dearly through the nose for shoddy service and sky high prices ever since. I get annoyed when i am told that re-nationalization of our railways and essential utilities would cost to much to do as their was less money around back in 1948 when the railways were brought in to public ownership overnight. I think that the public should get electricity, gas, water, railways, telephones, and Royal mail back by using and sequestrating the the majority shares that are held in them by big corporations that stole them from the tax payer in the first instance.
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Anonymous 6 years ago
Since privatization we have this disparate system of routes run by various companies which makes for a complicated procedure for identifying the ticket you need to book. To get a reasonably priced ticket you have to be able to book well in advance and be sure of being able to travel that day and time - no flexibility.
Generally, tickets are overpriced unless you get a cheap deal. Commuters particularly stung. Most, I think, would prefer one system with one pricing programme, even if it missed out the 'bargains'.
Always impressed with smooth running trains on the continent. Our rolling stock is having to play catch up, facilities are often poor and trains are crowded and unreliable often.
The south west line which runs through Dawlish is a disgrace - totally unreliable in the winter months. Investment is badly needed instead of tinkering with short term solutions which are not fail safe even in the short term. The whole economy of the area is hostage to a ridiculously unreliable route.
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Ben Pearce 6 years ago
Prices have gone up and up and service down and down. Privatisation simply doesnt work on rail as no two trains can run on the same line so there is in effect no choice for the consumer. Therefore its a fallacy and run by profit-making failiures
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Will Adams 6 years ago
The railways were privatised to increase competition, but on most routes competition is impossible, and the railway are in hands of a few (mostly foreign-owned) monopoly companies, whose business is to make money by means of running a railway, where the railway is a product (like a tin of beans), not a service. The rot set in when 'passengers' became 'customers'! We need an integrated railway system run for the benefit of the passengers, where the making of money is a means, not an end.
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Richard Lown 6 years ago
The profits creamed off by the private sector should have gone for increased investment and enhanced staffing instead of into private pockets. It is time the Government recognised the interests of the madss of people above private greed.
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Anthony Parker 6 years ago
This country drastically needs a genuinely public transport system. For both economic and environmental reasons it is essential that the railway network ceases to be run for a profit and starts to be a offered as a proper, public service instead.
If 'private' industry is deemed capable of providing the system whilst taking a profit then it is equally possible for this service to be delivered by the public sector on a not for profit basis.
This is a unique opportunity to deliver part of our transport system back to where it belongs - in the hands of the public.
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ALISON WATSON 6 years ago
The disabled and less mobile are being continually failed on railway services as profits are put first, not people. We need a reliable, cost-effective service that suits all commuters and we need guards on all trains. Take this public service out of greedy, private hands.
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Catherine Jane Smith 6 years ago
We need a joined-up, affordable public transport network
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Terry Weeks 6 years ago
The best and most efficient public transport systems in the UK are operated for the public. Buses run by councils run for the public, not shareholders, are superior to privately run companies constantly cutting routes and increasing prices. TfL operates for Londoners not shareholders. Railways must be run for the public, not shareholders.
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Rosemary Cole 6 years ago
I completely agree with the comments about the East Coast line when it was in public ownership. The fare system is far too complicated and there should be a unified system that makes costs of rail travel the same throughout the country. I am also concerned about the safety of passengers on Northern Railways if the company succeeds in bringing in driver operated doors and can at times travel without a second member of staff on the train.
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bryn golton 6 years ago
Prior to the 2nd World War our private railway system was broken and failing. During the war the government had to take over the direction of the railways and nationalise them after the war. During that period of nationalisation they were developed to become fit for purpose. But they started to declined again when they were underfunded and deprived of development opportunities by governments more interested in privatising them as a matter of policy. They did and we are seeing the results. Failing private railways again. Across Europe publicly owned railways are a success and that has been the pattern in the UK. Public ownership is the natural ownership pattern for railways.
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Wendy Humphreys 6 years ago
Private ownership is demonstrably not working for anyone else but the shareholders, let's start running the railways for the benefit of the public and rail users.
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David Kitson 6 years ago
The only winners since privatisation are the companies who apply new liveries to the rolling stock each time the operator is changed. The child's paintbox appearance of the stock is a reflection of the disjointed nature of the railway system. Bring it back into public ownership!
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Anonymous 6 years ago
Money paid out as dividends reduces the amount available to invest in the system.
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Mark Gilkes 6 years ago
The argument that privatised railways offer better service and value while being able to pay shareholders is simply not proven, over nunerous attemps to make the argument. Let us put that shareholder dividend into lowering prices and spending on infrastructure and service.
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Mike Scott 6 years ago
Privatisation of the railway network was always an ideological decision and the way it was done made a bad decision worse. The railway system is a natural monopoly and it is essential that it's run in the interests of the public rather than shareholders. The long series of crises and disasters show only too clearly that the private sector can't be trusted and the whole network needs to be reintegrated under public ownership. The East Coast line shows this can be done effectively. This isn't ideology, it's common sense!
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Quentin ISAAC 6 years ago
The current system is a complete shambles with ridiculous problems trying to negotiate different companies and ticket prices. The government is subsidising private companies which then either make a profit from our contributions or decide they cannot do so and pull out of their contract. This should be a co-ordinated public service and the railways should be brought back into public ownership as rapidly as possible.
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Paul Birrell 6 years ago
The rail network has proved itself unsuitable for privatisation. There are necessary services which ensure remote parts of the country remain connected and this fact does not sit well alongside the profit motive. The government continues to sink money into the network alongside train service providers that are unreliable, unaccountable and hugely profitable, all at the expense of the passenger. Taking the railway back into public ownership would be a popular, vote-winning, move, it would put more money in the exchequer and would ensure that our country remains connected.
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carolyn waters 6 years ago
Essential services such as the railways (and water, electric and buses) should all be in public ownership and run for the benefit of all with profits ploughed into the upkeep of the systems and maintaining affordable pricing - not providing profits for private investors. It would seem obvious that an integrated system that covers the whole of Britain would be more efficient than the present fragmented service.
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Andrew Collins 6 years ago
It is ridiculous that a ticket from A to B is often restricted to certain train operators. How is the public supposed to know whether a ticket is valid on a particular train when all the ticket says is something like "only available on approved trains". Public ownership is the only way to get rid of this nonsense.
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Dave Bannister 6 years ago
I am sick and tired of private companies running out railways, many of them are state owned in their own countries. The focus seems to be on profit, even when a company fails it seems to still get a bailout from our government. The Privatisation excercise is a disaster and the sooner our railways are back in Public hands the better.
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Brian Preece 6 years ago
Privatisation of the railways has been a failure. The East Coast fiasco is only the most visible part along with the timetable chaos we have seen this year. elsewhere, fares are high, services are poor and money is siphoned off into greedy "investors". If British Railways had had the investment that the government has poured into the private railways, the service would be much better and fares would be lower - just look at the largely public rail services on the continent to see this
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Molly Pickles 6 years ago
I cannot name any servics/company that has been improved by privatisation.The introduction of the profit for private owners distorts the decision - making process and alters the priorities of the company. The purpose should be SERVICE to the community not increasing the wealth of private individuals or companies.
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richard eccles 6 years ago
It is a complete and utter lie and contemptible fraud that should make the ministers and the business people involved face criminal charges that a private company is funded by public money to make profits for individuals whilst these same individuals claim there is no money available to finance the public transport system properly and yet they pay themselves fat cat salaries and enormous dividends to shareholders and their buddy mates in related industries and the commuter and the public get the worst services in Europe.
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Nicola Snell 6 years ago
Trains need to be centrally operated, affordable and responsibly managed in the people's interest - with a simple, workable, useable system. Multiple ownership creates the opposite of this and the profit motive keeps pushing fare prices to ridiculous heights. British Rail was flawed, but served this purpose better than the present "pig's breakfast". Please re-nationalise!
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Christine Joachim 6 years ago
Many members of my family have worked for the railways in the past. We are all ashamed of the shambles it has become, poor and overcrowded services, unacceptable delays and ridiculously high prices. None of us travel by train anymore. My last experience was frightening and I spent hours crushed outside the toilets surrounded by festival goers who also had no seats and nowhere to store their bags. The private sector has no interest in service only profits. The Government has no interest in service only bailing in out failing companies who have already asset stripped the very services they were appointed to run. Public ownership is the only way to sort out the chaos.
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Neal Champion 6 years ago
For commodity services such as which load of bread to buy, clearly competition is effective. But for significant services which enable the life blood of our nation, the attempt to try and create a 'competitive market' is highly undesirable. We need publicly owned national services that serve the public
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Colin Butler MBE 6 years ago
The railways were deliberately underfunded in the run up to privatisation but they still performed far better than they do now. Every journey I make on the railways now is a lottery.
Our railways are still state owned but not by the British state. Foreign investors do not have the interests of the travelling public at heart, why would they?
Privatisation was just about political dogma. Running our railway is far too important to millions of travellers for decisions to be left to the profit hunters of the private sector.
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Matt Miles 6 years ago
Ever since private companies took over the running of the British Rail Network, the interests of shareholders has taken precedence over passengers.
Public ownership is a must as we know it works. We must continue improving our railways systems as an efficient, comfortable alternative to our overcrowded, polluting roads. We need railways in every region to be fit for purpose.
Public ownership would see the income generated by the rail system return to the public purse: 100% of that would then be spent on securing improved public services for the people of the UK rather than large amounts of it being siphoned off into the hands of greedy institutional shareholders.
Public ownership would also make it possible to simplify the rail fare system, providing more savings and making it easier for more people to travel by rail.
Public ownership is good for the tax payer, good for passengers and good for the environment.
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Mike Watkins 6 years ago
As a 72-year-old man, who commuted into London for most of his working life, I've travelled on
British Rail and on the privatised services. Whilst the latter has added some superficial PR polish
to the services, the fundamental requirement of reliable travel at a sensible price and in reasonable
comfort has deteriorated substantially under the disjointed private rail services. Network Rail has
lost most of its skilled resources as a result of the out-sourcing of work to private companies. I
dread to think what visitors make of our the byzantine ticketing system, which serves only to confuse
and extract the maximum profit for the companies. Our Rail Services are being run in the interest of
big business and shareholders not the people.
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Cyril Liddy 6 years ago
Railways are a vital part of our national infrastructure, funded by our tax revenues, and should be accountable to Parliament - not to private investors or other state railways.
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Claire-Marie Parr 6 years ago
The rail service in the UK is a national disgrace. We are told to use public transport but if you want to get to work in time, it is impossible to depend on trains. They cancel services left right & centre. You do not services that you have paid for in first class because service is constantly cancelled. I do not know how the make any money because I claim so much back from them. Services in the North are in carriages that should be in museums. When you use trains in Europe including Russia it is the polar opposite. Clean, fast, regular & punctual modern service. My daughter had a case in Derby. Every train she took from Leeds & back over 14 days was delayed or cancelled. Instead of arriving home at 6-6.30 to her 9 month old baby, she was getting back at 7.30-8.30. In the end, I stayed in a hotel in Derby with the baby or she drove. This is the human cost. There are people trying to get home to sick relatives, elderly parents, to see their children before bedtime etc. It is totally unacceptable.
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Guy Johnson 6 years ago
We need a far more integrated railway system, run in the interest of passengers, not shareholders.
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Louis Northey 6 years ago
The shysters, spivs and speculators have taken over. The 'Big Four' outsourcing and "accountancy" firms -plus many others- would'nt have given British Rail a second glance. They do now, eyeing profit and solely profit. Civil engineering, one once 'in house' professional railway activity now has more contractors (each with their own bureacracy)'creaming'mouth-watering fees from an inept Government. We need change and that has to be back in public ownership.
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Sybil Ashton 6 years ago
We desperately need railways that work to obviate the need for car travel. Then the profits from fares can go back into the service rather than in shareholders’ pockets.
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Marcus Relton 6 years ago
In a developed, industrial/post-industrial society railways are a public good, of benefit to the wider economy and society. It is absurd that journeys are cheaper by road when this causes so much pollution and congestion. Rail has been priced out of reach for so many since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The rate of Government subsidy has risen, from memory, I think two or three times what it was for British Rail, as a nationalised industry. Since 2010 the rate of Government spending has fallen and so fares risen beyond the largely stagnant levels of most people's wages. Yet the service is unreliable. If there is a case for not having one, monolithic provider then separate units, or operators within the public sector can provide competition and innovation, without having to privatise. So why persist with this failed experiment? And this is without going into the need for affordable, integrated transport at mainline rail stations, particularly, in rural areas and working out how best to combine the advantages of car use for some journeys with the benefits of rail, to cut congestion and pollution.
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Andrew Roscamp 6 years ago
I truly believe, and proven when the East Coast mainline was run publically and turned a profit, that the railways can generate profits and if so these should be used toward maintaining and improving the railways, lowering prices and NOT going into shareholders pockets in in the amounts they have been. Public investment and reward I believe will transform a PUBLIC service.
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Alexi Dimond 6 years ago
Privatisation has been a catastrophic failure for commuters, tourists, people wishing to visit family, disabled people,safety and the environment. Prices rise dramatically year on year while the service and state of the trains and railways continues to decline. It can be cheaper to fly to Glasgow from London via Berlin than take the train; however the cost to the environment of enforced air and car travel is immeasurable. Public transport must be run by and for the public NOW!
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Ruth Styles 6 years ago
Privatisation has failed, it always was going to fail. Public services need investment and planning, neither interest private companies, who sole aim is pursuit if profit. Renationalise the railways now!
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roy smith 6 years ago
Privatisation of the railways has been an expensive shambles and it is time we had a national rail strategy including light rail under public ownership
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S Taylor 6 years ago
The evidence of poor service speaks for itself. Profits have been consistantly put before service. Customers are being gouged by monopolies who won't invest and aren't held accountable in any meaningful way.
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Richard Moore 6 years ago
As with other privatisations the privatised railway is fragmented and confusing. Ministers point to increased investment but this has come largely from the public purse not the private rail companies. There is no real competition here either. Rail companies make over optimistic bids to win the contracts and are then bailed out (East Coast x 2) when they find that they can't make a profit. This Government doesn't like nationalised industries and yet our rail system is run by a number of them, Deutsche Bahn, SNCF and the Chinese state rail company. We Own It! Let's have it back.
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Michael Rand 6 years ago
All public services Railways, Water, Gas & Electricity should be owned by the people we are continually being CONNED by the present government.
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Tim Cooper 6 years ago
The idea that our third-rate, privately-owned railways are a means for enriching shareholders, out of the misery of those who travel on them is truly appalling. We need a publicly-owned, affordable, world-class rail system, with profits ploughed back into it, and which benefits those who pay to travel on it, not the parasitic class which sees it as an investment opportunity.
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Michael Wright 6 years ago
I believe the railways should be brought back into public ownership as a matter of urgency, and properly funded, maintained and run for the public good from then on.
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Nick Miller 6 years ago
Politicians are always quick to paint a bleak picture of how British Rail functioned. But any imperfections there were at that time pale into insignificance against the incompetence, the shambles, the con that the current system allows. The government has failed in every sector of privatisation whether probation, prisons, buses, water, and goodness knows how many more. Private rail companies are allowed to get away with practices and treatment of the public that would land other organisations to shutdown or jail. Yet they are permitted by an ideology driven government to continue to suck out money from the public to fund fat cat bosses, offshore investors, to steal money that should remain in the system for the public good. The best way to solve this is for renationalisation of the rail (and all the other sold off services...)
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Dr David Dorling 6 years ago
Privatisation is efficient in many areas, but is a nonsense when it comes to railways because I have no choice in which provider to use. Lacking choice, the obvious option for me is a provider whose sole purpose is to support the public interest, not to provide profits for shareholders. The railways need to return to public ownership.
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Jill Malenoir 6 years ago
I am elderly and also disabled. I am terrified to travel by train nowadays. in case I get left on a train and shunted off into a siding for hours! I live in the South, where all the hooha over guards on the train has been going on.The Railways were never the Government's to sell, nor were any of the other industries and Companies which have been sold off since the 1980s.
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Julia Courtney 6 years ago
I worked for the old BR freight division in the year before privatisation, and the year afterwards. The old network worked quite well, was divided into geographical regions and everyone knew who was responsible for what. The supporting staff were very committed to the railways and we all foresaw what has since come to pass; Hatfield and Potters Bar and Paddington and others, and now a lot of delays and cancellations which has led to people losing their jobs and their partners.
My workplace was relocated last year and now I am having to use the railways for commuting again. I am 58 and I find the peak crowds, especially at interchange points, very intimidating. It's a two-leg journey and one part of it is notorious for delays and "suddenly taking out stops to meet our punctuality targets at the terminus". This means skipping the stop for the major general hospital where I work! Doctors, nurses and other staff are delayed because of this. And once a train is cancelled or made into a limited-stop service, the following one (they go at 7-minute intervals in inner London, so much used!) is seriously overcrowded and yesterday my colleague was forced to stand with a man's crotch up against her because there was literally no room to move. This level of crowding is unacceptable and dangerous.
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Wendé Anne Maunder 6 years ago
Private ownership of our railways has been an unmitigated disaster. I travel frequently on trains and it is blatantly, increasingly clear that private ownership has failed to provide a decent service for passengers and is not fit for purpose. There are never sufficient seating and travellers are packed like sardines along the aisles and entrance access. Before privatisation it was a pleasure, the carriages were always clean and more seats were provided.
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Sue Carole 6 years ago
Before privatisation problems on the railways were the exception. Now, in my experience, they are the rule and trouble-free journeys are a rarity. Rail passengers, and staff, are treated abominably.
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Richard Antony Kingsnorth 6 years ago
I am convinced that the only way the United Kingdom can get a truly efficient railway service that aims to serve the public good and help to increase the productivity of this country is to have a fully integrated railway system. This is NEVER going to be possible with a fragmented, privatised system of railway operators and rail track providers.
I have travelled extensively through Europe and in particular the Austrian, Swiss and Spanish railway systems are so efficient that they make ours look like one operated by a bankrupt third world country.
The priority is a single operator for our trains that can at last make sure that, barring accidents, the trains will leave the stations, leave the stations on time and arrive at their destinations on time.
The next stage must be the electrification of the majority of the railway system. At present a huge number of the U.K.'s principle cities do not have a singe electrified line running through them. Discuss this with a Swiss national and you will see them look at you open mouthed with shock and pity.
Not only is this extremely inefficient, but it creates pollution blackspots in those cities where diesel trains pass through and stand with their engines running for many minutes.
There is no possible alternative to overcome these dreadful failings other than a form of state ownership. There are many examples of this throughout Europe and we should learn from them HOW THIS CAN BE DONE.
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Susan Francis 6 years ago
It's not just about wasting money on shareholders and overpaid executives; it's also about coordination. In Switzerland, I've read, private companies talk to each other such that you can get a ticket from A to B via rail, ferry and cable-car and all the timetables join up in sensible ways. No private company in Britain has ever done that: they prefer to try to steal each other's passengers, so you have to guess which train or bus will turn up first and might have to wait longer to use the return half of a ticket, and they seem to go out of their way to make people miss connections.
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Paul Jinks 6 years ago
Rail travel in the UK is slow, unreliable, overcrowded and expensive. Market forces do not apply in a monopoly system and make what should be a public service into a corporate cash cow. The carve up of the rail system makes prevent it becoming a strategic asset to make people's lives simpler, easier and environmentally sustainable.
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Malcolm Gribble 6 years ago
Of course privatisation doesn't work. Can't imagine why anyone thought it would
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Gaenor Burchett-Vass 6 years ago
The price of rail travel in this country is frankly extortionate. Even if I book in advance with a railcard, the fares are still too high for my pocket.
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Alastair Fleck 6 years ago
The drive to privatise essential public services is a fraud foisted upon the people by neoliberals of all political persuasions. It should be resisted.
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Jenny Lennon-Wood 6 years ago
Privatisation has fragmented the railway service so that journey planning is ludicrously complicated, fares are outrageously expensive and seem incomprehensibly random. Worst of all, funding and tax-payer subsidy is poured into the pockets of shareholders while passengers suffer delays, cancellations and over-crowding.
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F Thistlethwaite 6 years ago
Public ownership is not a panacea, it will need to be worked at, but with good management, the 'profits' can be re-invested in the system, the network, along with the bus network, can be integrated and more consideration can be given to what rail users (and importantly, potential rail users) actually want from the railways. For instance the ability to take a bicycle on to any train with out prebooking and without limits on numbers. The current situation, with relatively short (in business terms) franchises, expensive franchising procedures, private profiteering and companies pulling out of contracts at will is just silly.
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Tim Cribb 6 years ago
The railways are a public utility which people have no option but to use, like roads, and should therefore not be run for profit. They are also intrinsically a system, which has to be run as such; to fragment a system is a contradiction in terms and counter-productive.
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B. Jones 6 years ago
As with other privatised utilities, the prime aim of railway companies is to make profits regularly for their investors and shareholders.
Publicly owned enterprises do not have this constraint and can decide whether to prioritise service delivery, investment or
creation of surplus funds as circumstances dictate.
As detailed in much Labour and Green thinking on new public enterprises these would not have to follow the old nationalised industry
organisational model and could represent multiple stakeholder interests.
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Ian Davidson 6 years ago
Apart from a greedy private sector, British tax payers are also subsidising foreign state owned railway companies.
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Bill Walton 6 years ago
Good quality, inexpensive rail travel is an essential PUBLIC SERVICE to help people get around while reducing the impact of global warming. It needs to be an integrated service (ticketing, track/trains) with surpluses reinvested rather than paid to shareholders. The government can borrow more cheaply for investment than private companies too. Part of the service must be support for people with disabilities and cyclists to make good use of services, with guards on trains to provide assistance. There needs to be a national strategy which does not overwhelmingly concentrate investment in the London area.
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Karan Smith 6 years ago
So tired of companies who put profit for shareholders & fat cat directors way ahead of reinvestment to improve the trains for their customers, without whom there wouldn't be any profit. Public ownership would bring back the circular system needed for reinvestment & improvements for rail customers, with ticket prices that don't rip us off!
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David Preston 6 years ago
This country is small enough to have one body responsible for rail travel & that body should be publicly owned. The efforts of the government to create profits for the City dwellers are a serious mistake as it increases costs to the travelling public way beyond what is right & sends the "profits" overseas. The nightmare that is crossrail & HS2 will bankrupt the nation almost as quickly as the saving of the Banking system which has crushed the average man, woman & child ever since while the elite grow richer thanks to bad government. Private enterprise should not profit from the publics services its wrong and should never be allowed by law again.
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Margo Sheridan 6 years ago
I am lucky as a retired person as I have a 30% off rail card and don't have to travel at peak times, so my experience of UK railways is not too bad. But when I think of the best railways I have travelled on - Holland, Austria, France, Japan for example -they are all publicly owned and they are all miles ahead of the UK in every way, good quality rolling stock, punctuality, cleanliness, better pricing, efficient ticketing system etc. In Germany,where deregulation is spreading, I was surprised to find that not a single train I travelled on ran on time. I have drawn my own conclusion...
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Robert Howard 6 years ago
I can only call upon my knowledge and experience of a near 38 years’ service within the railway industry, starting in 1981 under British Rail & whilst certainly far from being the finished article, it was clear that when an issue affected the railway it was everyone’s issue, the industry would pull together to collectively solve the problem using the skills knowledge and experience that the staff had of an already creaking infrastructure, until being put through the tumultuous era of failed privatisation in 1994 through to 2007 where it appeared that the railways and the employees were sold down the river as profit driven firms were ‘gifted’ gold plated contracts & when an issue arose the blame game between numerous different operating companies exacerbated the situation, & throughout these years significant knowledge and awareness of the industry was lost as staff were made redundant, more importantly the industry did not replace these colleagues or even consider that trained staff would be needed to replace those lost to the ravages of privatisation.
When finally placed back into Network Rail through the process of several ‘TUPE’ experiments, at this point one could have thought that the upheaval was at an end, however through the ever constant process of re-organisation & tinkering (almost every 2 years) we see the resultant dis-benefits of the railway industry in 2019, from within the area of bands 1-4 permanent staff, where I sit, they are today more disadvantaged than both the employees they manage & also compared to the numerous contract staff that work within the industry, for 8 years below inflation pay rises & real terms wage cuts has led to the general morale of this particular area of permanent staff being lower than it has ever been, knowledge of the industry & more importantly how it needs to run is still widely with the sphere of the contracting world and until this is industry is integrated again as one, the fragmentation and chaotic scenes that the travelling public has experienced through timetabling fiascos and repeated over running engineering works will continue especially when no one person is truly is accountable, even the SOS states he is not in charge of the railways?
Further wholesale changes are not needed within the industry, detailed training programmes are though required for staff, so we can have an industry which one again employs and values that the staff within it, & are the best placed to maintain run & enhance the railway rather than continuing to import sub-contractors & consultants whose main aim is to extort the maximum remuneration for the services they supply.
For all its worth & with the money that has been spent in control periods since the mid 1990’s, bringing back British Rail where track & train are united would be a worthy aim
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Paul Bunting 6 years ago
Govia-Thameslink do not run Southern Railways properly. I have had delays, cancellations, stopping short of the destination, and excuses like "congestion" which is plainly the fault of the Railway. We never had this sort of trouble when British Rail ran the Railways. On Great Western Railway, we were told to charge trains at Paddington because of a fault on the advertised train and although the substitute train started half an hour later did I get any compensation? NO! Sack then private owners and bring the railways back into public ownership. At West Worthing Station there were plants growing out of the Chimney Stacks and grass growing in the gutters. Have the private owner no shame? Sack them all.
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Hilary Clarke 6 years ago
Money is wasted on bidding for franchises, rebranding when franchises change, advertising rival services and providing an assortment of on-line booking services. This could be better used on the core service and on keeping fares affordable.
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paul Walsh 6 years ago
Need I say more than 'Southern'?
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Paul Bunting 6 years ago
High fares, delays and cancellations are my experience of our privatised railways. I travelled by railway much more in the 1960s and the railways were on time and fares were lower.
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Jean Ball 6 years ago
The fallacy that the private sector is more efficient has been proven hollow. Excellent management is essential, but public transport needs to be run for the public, not for private and shareholder profit. Every penny possible needs re-invested into the public transport network so that it can deliver for our economy, our communities, and our environment.
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Mr MA Moran 6 years ago
The railways in this country are a disgrace, as are the way the rail companies keep demanding more public subsidies to top up their dividends. Enough is enough; the trains are unusable for most people, let's make them a economical travelling choice, rationalise the ticket prices, and get a few more cars off the roads!
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Clement Chung 6 years ago
Privatisation has created a disjointed delivery of rail services, with a confusing array of ticketing options. The return on investment seems to be for shareholders only, even though the public purse heavily subsidises the franchises operating the services.
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Prue Stothard 6 years ago
I agree with all comments advising a return to public ownership of the railways. Publicly owned British Rail ran trains on time, had one pricing system, co-ordinated repairs of stock and track, were comfortable, had dining facilities on board, were safer, co-ordinated cross country trains and reinvested surpluses back into the company. What's not to like???
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Michele Kondakor 6 years ago
The current system is broken. It does not work having different rules in different places. Trains are part of our public transport network and should be run for the public NOT for companies to make huge profits.
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Bob Long 6 years ago
Public utilities and services should be owned by the public, and not some rich individual or foreign company creaming off dividends and profits and failing to reinvest said profits into the services/utilities being provided.
Private ownership has led to the ridiculously high fares and appalling services now being provided by bus and rail companies!
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Geoff Dakin 6 years ago
It has been said that 'ownership is sharing'. And, in this case, that means public ownership of our railways and not ownership by private companies and their shareholders. I look forward to the day when we can say, "We own it!"
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Dave Earl 6 years ago
I worked in the Rail Industry for 35 years. There were lots of issues under BR ownership, not least political meddling & underfunding, which needed addressing.
When Privatisation reared its head I was in favour. I saw it as a chance to have a top down shake up & make it work better & more efficiently. Also get rid of deadwood which was impeding growth
However, I did not envisage a system so fragmented as it now is, but still in the hands of meddling politicians following their own party dogma.
Awarding contracts to various dubious private contractors by the same meddling politicians has left us with an unsafe, unreliable, unwieldy & unworkable shambles.
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Caroline Wilson 6 years ago
It seems totally obvious to me that a privatised system has to take money out of the business to pay its shareholders, and a publicly owned system can plough all profits back into the business, thus IMPROVING it. Why is it that the East Coast Line has done best when under public ownership?
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Anonymous 6 years ago
When the East Coast line has been taken back into public ownership it has made a profit for the people, not for the rail company. Fares on the West Coast line from and to London are unaffordable for the average person. After paying these high fares the overcrowding is diabolical often having to stand for the whole journey. Just a few examples as to why the railways should be in public ownership.
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Paul Lawlor 6 years ago
The current state of the railways is shameful, in it's current form it is not fit for purpose,shareholders profits put before the needs of the travelling public, worsening services on the each of the franchises ie Southern, SWR, Arriva North and ridiculous fare increases- the blame for this debacle lies squarely at the door of Chris Grayling whose incompetence defies belief.
The sooner these rail companies are stripped of their franchises and the whole network renationalised the better.
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kath gray 6 years ago
Private ownership of the railway system was only ever about making money, unrestrained greed has led to taking the michael. Enough.
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Linda Cornall 6 years ago
How does anyone expect to have a joined-up railway service when so many different owners are pursuing their different agendas? I remember nationalised railways and they certainly worked better than the current system, even without modern technology to help.
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Tim Barlow 6 years ago
I just want cheaper fares!
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Professor Elisabeth Gerver 6 years ago
When I first started work in Newcastle in the 1960's, trains were sufficiently reliable and reasonably priced so that I was able to commute on a daily basis from Durham to Newcastle, never arriving late at work. Now that I live in the Cotswolds, it is impossible to plan any commitments in London because the Great Western trains are consistently late, unheated or insufficiently heated; carriages are not clearly structured, the loos are frequently dirty; the automatic announcement systems are often erroneous (eg when the train from Paddington is approaching Swindon on a journey that is supposed to carry on to Cheltenham, an automsatic announcement is erroneously made that the trsain will not proceed beyond Swindon). Moreover, the very short time span between when trains are first notified and the departure is often far too short safely to board the train.
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Nick Jowett 6 years ago
I'm not aginst the private sector being involved in providing some services, but the rail privatisation, like that of the probation service, has had many bad effects, and both need to be put back into public provision with public service at their heart.
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Jim Piper 6 years ago
I have used the railways for more than 60 years. British Railways (aka British Rail) was not perfect, but it got lots of people from A to B with a minimum of fuss and for an affordable fare. The theory underlying privatisation was that private companies would inevitably run the railways more efficiently than they could possibly be run if publicly owned. There was zero evidence to support this theory in advance of privatisation, and ample evidence since then that the theory is false. That private companies are more efficient now has similar status, in my eyes at least, to the theory that the earth is flat. It's supported solely by ideology, not by any evidence. In the 21st century. What a sad comment on our society, values and rulers...
Like other posters here, over the past couple of decades I too have experienced East Coast in both private and public hands. The service was probably better when publicly owned (I don't have actual data on this, so am keeping an open mind). And it only succeeded in making a "profit" (I would prefer to call it a surplus) while publicly owned.
So all in all, I would like to see the railways comprehensively renationalised, as soon as posssible.
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Tim Bolton-Maggs 6 years ago
The "privatisation" of the railways has produced a dysfunctional system which does not serve rail travellers well. Years of underfunding in the 20th Century kept the nationalised network from achieving its true potential and we are still suffering from this, despite the "benefits" that "privatisation" was supposed to provide. As a regular rail traveller for more than five decades, I have witnessed the decline in our service – which is very clear when compared with its counterparts in mainland Europe.
The present system is, in fact, not privatisation at all because taxpayers' money is being poured into inefficient companies which cream off a significant portion to line the pockets of their shareholders.
Also, there is no true competition because only one company is allowed to run a particular service - for example the East Coast Main Line between Edinburgh & London or the much-maligned route between Norwich and London. The rail companies have no incentive to maintain good services that reflect the high prices they charge for their tickets.
The outsourcing of engineering (both maintenance and building) has been a disaster – the collapse of Carillon has caused all sorts of headaches because projects like the provision of new platforms at Edinburgh Waverley have been held up for almost a year and the introduction of new rolling stock is way behind schedule.
The government's controls on the system are out-of-touch and counter-productive: things were much better when regional managers were able to adapt services to local conditions, running more (or larger) trains when they knew there would be a high demand. The "efficiency" of the present system is only seen on the annual balance-sheets and actually makes the experience of travelling by rail very unpleasant at times.
To maintain the efficiency of an integrated transport system, the rail network and all its services need to be brought back into public ownership so the entire country can benefit from improved services and better value for money.
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RAJESH SEMRETE SELASSIE AGGARWAL FRSA 6 years ago
The RICH Tories OWN all the Companies they have Privatised, They OWN The Majority of the shares and they are the ones who keep increasing prices of everything and they lie to the people of the UK... The RICH Tories OWN all the Companies they privatised like Electric, Gas, Water, BT, Royal Mail, British Rail.... and They Keep increasing prices and the services offered are DIABOLICAL... Working Class Tories of the UK are TOO STUPID & THICK to realise just what the RICH TORIES are doing to everyone.....SAVE THE NHS BEFORE THESE RICH TORIES privatise our NHS completely.....
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Roderic Parker 6 years ago
It was sensible for private companies to build the railways in the nineteenth century - there was no national vision and no national way of supporting the enterprise. But that was then and we are now in now - needing a unified system managed for the national community and owned by the national community. There is no place for the likes of George Hudson, the 'Railway King', in the 21st century.
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Ruth 6 years ago
Ever rising railfares and no better service; rather late or cancelled trains are considered the norm. And this under privatisation - companies allegedly competing to produce the best in rail travel. Could it be that the neoliberal approach to public services doesn't work?
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Alexandra Veres 6 years ago
Stop subscribing to the evil ideology that only the rich (Branson, Gloag, et al) deserve to make money, and start representing the many by nationalising our railways. Only a fool could fail to understand that a service whose raison d'être is to benefit the user MUST be better than one whose bottom line is profit! We pay for it, we deserve it.
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David Treadwell 6 years ago
Unfortunately, from the very nature of the current attitude of private companies, they do not always have the interest
in and for the general public, and indeed many of them have other national interests, even controlled by foreign governments.
Also, there is poor regulation and poor governance, and with the UK civil service experiencing a reduction in their level of expertise and knowledge, by the continued policy of outsourcing and privatisation.
An example was Railtrack, having disregarded the engineering experience, in favour of the City, the result was being unable to fulfil their responsibilities and they eventually collapsed.
Indeed, many of our government policies have been seen to be ideological and damaging to the national interests.
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Mungo Campbell 6 years ago
I believe that our railways ought to constitute an integrated element of our country's economic infrastructure and be run as a public service funded by taxation and any resultant revenue. I strongly support full nationalisation as a political objective.
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Kerry Hunt 6 years ago
I am fed up being crammed onto Trains not fit for purpose, on a railway no longer fit for purpose - all in the name of profit over passengers.
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Roland Jeremy Ian Hornegold 6 years ago
The railways must be run for the benefit of the public, not to line shareholders' pockets
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JOHN BOSTOCK 6 years ago
It seems to be that the government do not want to listen to 70% of the public when it comes to national ownership, even if it is the best for all but the shareholders of private companies.
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Hilary Eddy 6 years ago
For too long we have had governments who seem to believe that any taxpayers' money that is not immediately transferred to some private company or other is a wasted opportunity. Businessmen like Branson appear to believe that it is their divine right to have a constant stream of wealth emanating from the public purse. It seems singularly obvious that any service that is required to generat a generous reward for shareholders (or foreign nationalised bodies) is likely to cost more than a body that does not have to. It is also pretty obvious that cash going to shareholders cannot be re-invested in the service being provided.
Nationalised industries were not perfect, but they were amenable to pressure from voters and politicians. I used to enjoy travelling by train, but am now determined to fly from Cornwall to the Midlands on my next family visit. I simply don't see why I should pay an exorbitant fare only to be faced by hold-ups, cancellations, slow trains, non-functioning toilets, and the nightmare of going through multiple ticket checks as I try to change trains at the shopping mall previously known as Birmingham New Street.
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Kathryn Mulloy 6 years ago
The Government has allowed private rail companies to make a mess of the system and out price fares for the public. Anyone who has a choice, like myself, will use National Express coaches or similar services. How does this make sense if the Government truly wants to reduce our carbon emissions and control the air pollution which is harming, in particular, children's lungs.
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Colin Adams 6 years ago
I think that public services should be run in the interests of the public and not shareholders. The railway system is too complex, especially the fares, and too fragmented. We need a publicly owned joined up system.
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Robert Howard 6 years ago
As for supplying evidence, I can only call upon my knowledge and experience of a near 38 years’ service within the railway industry, starting in 1981 under British Rail & whilst certainly far from being the finished article, it was clear that when an issue affected the railway it was everyone’s issue, the industry would pull together to collectively solve the problem using the skills knowledge and experience that the staff had of an already creaking infrastructure, until being put through the tumultuous era of failed privatisation in 1994 through to 2007 where it appeared that the railways and the employees were sold down the river as profit driven firms were ‘gifted’ gold plated contracts & when an issue arose the blame game between numerous different operating companies exacerbated the situation, & throughout these years significant knowledge and awareness of the industry was lost as staff were made redundant, more importantly the industry did not replace these colleagues or even consider that trained staff would be needed to replace those lost to the ravages of privatisation.
When finally placed back into Network Rail through the process of several ‘TUPE’ experiments, at this point one could have thought that the upheaval was at an end, however through the ever constant process of re-organisation & tinkering (almost every 2 years) we see the resultant dis-benefits of the railway industry in 2019, from within the area of bands 1-4 permanent staff, where I sit, they are today more disadvantaged than both the employees they manage & also compared to the numerous contract staff that work within the industry, for 8 years below inflation pay rises & real terms wage cuts has led to the general morale of this particular area of permanent staff being lower than it has ever been, knowledge of the industry & more importantly how it needs to run is still widely with the sphere of the contracting world and until this is industry is integrated again as one, the fragmentation and chaotic scenes that the travelling public has experienced through timetabling fiascos and repeated over running engineering works will continue especially when no one person is truly is accountable, even the SOS states he is not in charge of the railways?
Further wholesale changes are not needed within the industry, detailed training programmes are though required for staff, so we can have an industry which one again employs and values that the staff within it, & are the best placed to maintain run & enhance the railway rather than continuing to import sub-contractors & consultants whose main aim is to extort the maximum remuneration for the services they supply.
For all its worth & with the money that has been spent in control periods since the mid 1990’s, bringing back British Rail where track & train are united would be a worthy aim
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Crinan Alexander 6 years ago
Conservative doctrine tells us that privatisation leads to 'healthy' competition between service providers resulting in lower fares and better services. I'd really like to know how this applies to the privatised railways.
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Patrick Owen 6 years ago
The railways are just one essential service that has been fragmented by successive conservative governments for private profit. The result, a dysfunctional service that exploits its users and demands increased tax payer subsidy. UK rail fares are the highest in Europe. The public want the railways to be brought back under public control and run in the interests of the travelling public, not private operators and their shareholders.
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Gareth Davies 6 years ago
Private companies' priorities are profits and shareholders, not customers and passengers. The railways are essential to British communities and must be run for public good, not for private profit.
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Cliff 6 years ago
There are few things that unite a nation like the railway , both literally and figuratively. Our railway is a divided and dysfunctional as our government. Money going out of the service to shareholders undermines the investment needed: we need state ownership, state investment and fair prices. And let's have a railway system we are proud of - unlike the shoddy government we have.
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RW 6 years ago
The cost of a railway journey is prohibitive. The country speaks of getting cars off the road, but whilst it is cheaper to drive a car than take a train that's not going to happen. I can't AFFORD to use the train to commute or, where a route exists, visit family. European railways serve their customers far better. Nationalise the railways and run them for the people not the shareholders.
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Julia Elson 6 years ago
If rail companies can make a profit for shareholders then the majority of the population be better off if they reinvested that profit for the benefit of the system and the customers. The arguments for privatisation have been shown to be specious and short sighted - we were told that British Rail workers stood around doing nothing but as soon as they were made redundant there was no one to spot when a rail was about to break, when trees needed pruning back so their leaves wouldn't go onto the line etc etc
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Frank Smith 6 years ago
Get all transport under public control. This includes road and rail,both goods and public. Only then can we get total efficient use of transport energy and climate abuse.
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Graham Sharples 6 years ago
It is clear that privatised rail cannot deliver even an adequate service for its passengers. The need for profit, lack of coordination with a contempt for its customers convenience and comfort.
Its not more privatisation we need, that is a failed model, but a return to a public owned service operating across the whole of the rail network
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Jamie Goodland 6 years ago
Public ownership is not only the solution to the ills of the current system, but the necessary first step to democratic ownership of our rail industry.
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Helen Field 6 years ago
Run the railway for the people, not shareholders. And keep guards on trains too!
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Jim Fisher 6 years ago
Public transport of all kinds is a natural monopoly and so inappropriate for private ownership, quite apart from the other reasons that apply.
Public transport is an essential public service, not a business, and should be viewed as such. Its purpose includes taking as much passenger and freight traffic off our roads as possible to reduce pollution, global warming and congestion, and to make travel as easy as possible for those who, for whatever reason, do not have access to cars.
Public transport services, which includes railways, should not be designed to make profit but to provide services which are easy to use for everyone. That includes a much simplified ticketing system, such as having rechargeable tickets that authorise travel for a given number of miles, regardless of which train is used or where the destination might be.
Taking rail and buses back into public ownership need not be expensive - simply don't renew the franchises when they expire or fall vacant for any reason.
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David Owen 6 years ago
Privatisation has caused a disjointed system that benefits shareholders and disadvantages the public. The railways are a vital part of public infrastructure. They should be run to provide the maximum, efficient, affordable benefit for the whole of society, taking traffic off roads, freeing travellers to rest and work, instead of driving, and reducing carbon output. They are a public good that should be funded by the public, for the benefit of all. Passenger safety should always come before any attempts at cost cutting.
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Sarah Silverton 6 years ago
As I sit on the floor of yet another over-crowded train which has cost me £70 for the privilege, I am sick to death of the fat cats making yet more money off poor commuters. My main railway line used to be South West Trains,has been sold to the Chinese, now called South Western Railway and promptly messed up a perfectly good timetable. Why? And the thought of travelling on that odious Richard Branson’s Virgin train and paying £170 to get from London to Manchester makes me furious as he sits sunning himself on his tax haven island and I’m squashed into his ridiculously small seats in a dirty carriage.
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Sarah Barratt 6 years ago
I want the profits from the railway service to go back into the service, not into the pockets of shareholders.
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Alan Harrison 6 years ago
There is massive public support for taking the railways back into public ownership. DO IT -and without the payment of compensation to corporate crooks. Rail is a natural monopoly and best run in the public sector.
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Ruth Anderson 6 years ago
It is essential that the railways are run for the people not for the profit of private investors. Here in West Yorkshire I'm tired of being forced to travel on old trains, cast off by other rail companies down south, because these trains are unreliable and breakdown. Please give us a proper national public service.
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Michael Cockburn 6 years ago
Almost everything about the current rail system is broken; multiple failed franchises, no long-term thinking (because private companies on fixed-term franchises are only ever going to think short-term); track maintenance, stations and running of services need to be under unified management, not the dog’s dinner we currently have; too much money going to shareholders even where performance is poor...I could go on! Bring Back British Rail!
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Mary Sheldon 6 years ago
For over 60 years I have been a regular user of our railways & intend to continue travelling by train in the future. I am so sad that out trains are now run for profit: this is not what I want to happen to the fares I pay to travel the length & breadth of the UK. We badly need serious investment in our railway network. I personally would not mind paying the currently high fares if they were being used to invest in the railways. I DO NOT wish to pay out to travel by train for the benefit of shareholders of private companies.
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Paul Hanson 6 years ago
A publicly owned integrated railway is the way forward. Further fragmentation and privatisation is not the answer as this is both expensive and inefficient.
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Nick Lindsey 6 years ago
Railways should not be run for the profit of foreign governments or elite executives! They should serve you and I, the people of Britain and all extra governments should go back into improvement not the pockets of the super-wealthy
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Daphne Kelly 6 years ago
Profits, not people are the main concern of private companies, as they have and continue to demonstrate. Public ownership is the obvious solution to the appalling conditions which so many people currently have to endure on a daily basis. I too recall vastly superior conditions when the railways were publicly owned.
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Haydn Cornish-Jenkins 6 years ago
Although the whole country needs more investments into rail infrastructure and a system that is run for people, not profit, more needs to be done to improve transport in the north. Northern Rail services are a joke. Focus on the north, not London.
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Kathy Bird 6 years ago
It is clear that privatisation of the railways hasn't been good for the general public. The train companies have put the interests of their shareholders at the forefront. We really need to now consider gradually bringing the railways back into public ownership as many other countries do so successfully.
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Mary Pretorius 6 years ago
Privatization puts money into the pockets of the shareholders and the large number of parasites who leech off the system of privatization. I want the money to stay in the public purse and be used by the public who depend on the service and not on the leeches who over time cause the service and the infrastructure to degrade whilst fares go up. I want the UK government to listen to the people (but I fear their ears are full of sound of their own voices, in the same way they have not listened to the Brexit voters). LISTEN.............GIVE US BACK OUR RAILWAYS, AND ALL THE OTHER SERVICES PRIVATIZED OVER THE YEARS.
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Brian Harding 6 years ago
The aims of private companies are the complete antithesis of what is needed for efficient public transport.
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Maureen Marsh 6 years ago
In my opinion, lip service is paid to environmental concerns at the same time as the cost of public transport means that fewer people can afford to use it. Where is the real commitment to our environment when profit is out before this very important problem?
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Dr Hugh Pincott 6 years ago
Look at the situation in Northern Ireland where railways are still publicly owned. Passenger numbers have risen at least as much (possibly more) compared with the rest of Britain. Fares have risen considerably less than inflation there, and investment has still continued to rise, benefitting passengers immensely.
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John Hartley 6 years ago
Public transport is a public asset and should be run for the benefit of the public, not for private shareholders to take profits.
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Norma Sacchetti 6 years ago
I have always believed in public ownership of the railways(and other important services for that matter). I remember the days of British Rail, and I cannot remember a time when the service was so badly run as it is now. Privatisation has put profit before service and led to fragmentation and increasing unnecessary higher costs(e.g the money spent on constantly putting railway services out to tender). The profits should be invested back into the railways not go to shareholders and overinflated Chief Executive salaries.
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Edwin 6 years ago
There are so many examples of how a fragmented, privatised rail system just doesn't work. Increased fares, resource inefficiency and poor service from companies who indefensibly continue to both receive public subsidy and simultaneously pay dividends to their shareholders.
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Edwin 6 years ago
There are so many examples of how a fragmented, privatised rail system just doesn't work. Increased fares, resource inefficiency and poor service from companies who indefensibly continue to both receive public subsidy and simultaneously pay dividends to their shareholders.
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Suzanne Jones 6 years ago
With climate change it is important to have an efficient railway system which serves a growing number of people. Public ownership of the railways means that all revenue will be put back into the service. Money will not disappear into shareholders pockets. As it is the private companies receive huge government subsidies and still manage to provide an appalling service.
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Frank Smith 6 years ago
Goods and public transport should be integrated using more rail to aid climate stability and efficiency under public ownership.
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Alan 6 years ago
I was against that bodged up rail privatisation right from the start, even the Economist magazine stated statistical proof that you can't run the railways for profit because of a net loss that always exist. That's why it has to be a not for profit national network as British Rail was.
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Judith Howard 6 years ago
1. The method of privatisation, slicing the "cake" horizontally, with different companies in charge of track, rolling stock leasing and train operation, was clumsy and added much administrative expense, and gave companies an excuse to avoid responsibility whenever things went wrong. Things worked better in the days of the "Big Four", who had full control in their "slices" from the ground up.
2. The subsidies paid today are, I believe, even more than in BR days. If BR had not been starved of cash, many of the complaints directed at them could have been corrected. It makes no sense for so-called "private" companies to rely on public subsidy. It was clear that adding an extra layer of costs, i.e. shareholders, would syphon off more of the profits.
3. The franchise system does not work. It encourages companies to bid higher than they can afford, with the result that they can't recoup the cost (as in the East Coast fiasco). It means that they charge as much as possible on popular routes, such as tourist areas like the West Country, to milk customers on those lines. Pricing is totally inconsistent - how can East Coast be allowed to charge twice the price for a day return from London to Leicester, as Chiltern Railway charges all the way to Birmingham, twice the distance?!
4. We WANT and NEED Guards on trains. The govt. should immediately stop forcing franchisees to dispense with them. The disabled in particular need their support, but so do other passengers, for many reasons, e.g. for help with luggage, travel information, protection from anti-social behaviour, and for closing the doors SAFELY - at my station, Clapham Junction, the platforms are curved and the driver can't see the full length of the platforms. There have been many reports of passengers hands being caught in doors, a lady's pet dog being dragged to its death, and wheelchair users being abandoned on platforms (many of which are no longer manned in off-peak hours). There should be a public survey and consultation - it's our money and we want our Guards!!
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Carole Wheat 6 years ago
As well as putting the railways back into public hands they should also do this for the water boards. I don't want huge profits going to shareholders when the profits can be filtered back into maintaining and improving the service. My daughter lives in London and the times she has been late for work because trains have been cancelled or just did not turn up are too many to mention.
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Josh Vinall 6 years ago
For the many and not the few. Branson and the rest of them are laughing at the public whilst tickets go up and services remain abysmal. Its not right and it should be allowed to continue. !
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John Steggles 6 years ago
When I was a kid, using the train was normal. It wasn't overpriced, it wasn't late or crowded, and at one point I used to take a bicycle with me every day - and back again. No problems.
Now apparently, although invented and developed into a network first in England, the British can not keep it operating on time, or at the right price.
Whatever went wrong need to be fixed - and now!
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Clive Woodland 6 years ago
I understand our railway journeys are some of the most expensive in the world. The Government is opposed to nationalisation but allows nationalised railways from other countries to have stake a in our system. Most of our railways are owned by foreign companies. Their only interest is in profit, not running a service for the public. The Portsmouth to Cardiff service runs most of the time with only two carriages, yet it goes through major cities like Bath and Bristol, routes that are important to locals and tourists. Not surprisingly, trains sometimes even pass through stations without allowing any passengers to get on because they are already too overcrowded. Passengers collapse because of the overcrowding and the ill-health and panic this can bring about.
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Chloe Barker 6 years ago
I want to see the railways taken back into public ownership, I use the North East Mainline service regularly and it has never been better run than when it was in public ownership and it was profitable - it gave money back to the treasury. We need to return the railways to the people to help reduce carbon emissions by making rail travel a better, more efficient and cheaper way to travel than driving.
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david somerville 6 years ago
Railways in the north of England have not had the money spent on them that is required for access and jobs across the Pennines - this is partly from the London bias and the mistaken policy of thinking that north-south links are the most important. So a nationalised rail system could spend more on east-west links than private companies would, including opening up disused lines and tunnels.
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Judith Howard 6 years ago
1.The fragmentary method of privatisation, slicing the "cake" horizontally instead of vertically (as in the days of the Big Four)has made it very expensive to run, with increased admin. costs, and made it easy for companies to avoid responsibility when things go wrong (just passing the buck). 2. Also, the companies should not receive public subsidies - in fact I believe these subsidies are actually higher than in BR days! If they are truly private companies, they should stand on their own two feet. 3. The franchise system does not work, as shown by the East Coast fiasco; companies are paying too much to gain the franchise, and then can't recoup it in fares. It leads to inconsistent pricing, where they grab as much as possible on popular tourist routes (e.g. the West Country) regardless of mileage. Some are just greedy - East Midlands charge twice the fare from London to Leicester than Chiltern Railways charge all the way to Birmingham, twice the distance! 4. Perhaps not entirely relevant, but the govt. should NOT persist in getting franchisees to dispense with Guards on trains. We the public WANT and NEED them. There should be a public consultation and survey.
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Jane Gibbon 6 years ago
Joined-up systems work best; a rail system is part of the national infrastructure so should be run for the good of the people not shareholders; our current franchise holders seem to think they're running airlines, which is totally counter to passenger (NOT 'customer') requirements; and freight is neglected - 'nuff said?
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Anonymous 6 years ago
Our railways are run by an assortment of private companies, many of which are offshoots of EEC state owned railways, but strangely not the Swiss, which is miles ahead of everyone else on running an efficient, comfortable railway with timetables that mean less waiting between trains, because everything runs to time and is coordinated. This should be our model for our state run railway. If the Swiss can do it with their variety of languages, hot weather in summer and really cold with much snow in winter, across mountains, through tunnels, then ours should be easy. But we have a hotchpotch of some private , some public and no-one with decent experience of joining it all up, because the good people all left and took their nice packages and free rail passes when privatisation happened. I live in York and know several of these top people who have gone on to consultancies or founded their own businesses, in one case making millions and in another, the man who had to deal with the Kings Cross disaster! What a waste of talent and experience, of a resource of people who understood rail travel. Even better, our rail travel should coordinate with the buses. In York, we have a city council who have decided to pedestrianise a huge area in front of the station. Do they ever have to run for trains carrying luggage. Why make that more difficult? Virgin wanted to place barriers in our ancient and iconic station. That makes life even more difficult for passengers, when we should be making it much easier and more efficient to use trains as first choice for longer journeys. My daughter had a season ticket and was using the train to work and back every day. But she has given it up and uses the car now. Why? Because she could not reserve a seat with a season ticket and had to stand all the way for an hour in a cramped corridor in the morning, every single morning - no way to start your day. She also saves some money, using the car, but that was not the issue, she would prefer to go by train and have a seat. I know others who have stopped using the train because they can't guarantee to get their bike on and needed that to cycle to work after the train. The only answer to the mess our railways are in is public ownership, public investment and raising tax on petrol to pay for it.
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JeanneChristie 6 years ago
Railways need to be efficient and cheap (i.e. state-run and subsidised where necessary) because we need to use public transport as much as possible for the sake of our environment. The UK loves its railways and the government is missing a major investment by not putting the railways back into public ownership. It's not rocket science to figure out that private companies will only ever be interested in profit. Our country is - or used to be - about more than profit. If we can trust our railways to work properly we will use them. It's disgraceful to see them so undervalued -rubbished - by privatisation when they could work for the convenience of individuals and make a vital contribution towards reducing the use of private cars.
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Mike Jennett 6 years ago
I live between 2 Stations one is served by Southern Rail and the service has been atrocious. The other is run by London Overground and some Southern Rail trains use it and cause endless problems and large fare increases but the TFl trains are well run and have few problems and fares have been frozen for another year. So all railway should be run on a not for profit basis. So the passengers become the focus of the service and not the Shareholders.
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Annie Nixson 6 years ago
We need a reliable rail network and value for money. The privatized system isn't working and the railways should be nationalized.
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Christine Fishwick 6 years ago
Cheaper rail fares will reduce the ever increasing traffic on our motorways, reducing the fumes in our atmosphere, the over use of petrol and resources, save lives from accidents as it is a safer way to travel, all pluses to preserve our planet!!
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B McKenna 6 years ago
The railways are part of the infrastructure for the country and as such plays a big part in people's lives. Many people travel to work by rail and are paying ridiculous amounts to get there. There comes a point when it isn't worth their while to continue paying a substantial amount of their wages and suffering immense stress just to get to work, they are better off getting lower paid employment nearer home. This will impact on skills being wasted in this country. All this to fill shareholders pockets and profit greed. The motive cannot ever be profits, it must be to serve the public who need this service and have no choice in the matter.
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Arthur Mitchell 6 years ago
I just believe public transport should belong to the people. That can only mean public ownership, safeguarded and professionally managed by Government. There is no public interest in the minds of profiteers and it is particularly galling when the deficiencies of these pirates are covered up by public money provided by none other than Government. Now that is undoubtedly all-round, competent management at its best - "and so say all of us" as we wait and wait and wait on platforms all over the country for the "next" train which is more likely to be a ghost train than one "on time"!! If "The 3:10 To Yuma" had been made in Britain, Christian Bale would have died of old age instead of a bullet.
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Teresa Fallon 6 years ago
The problems we face-overcrowded roads contributing to climate change and air pollution-are national ones.The solution has to be on a national scale, too-a single rail network in public ownership, reliable and inexpensive because it has received a decent level of investment.The railways are too important to be left in the hands of private companies, who have demonstrably failed to provide a good service.
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Rozelle 6 years ago
Invest in a publicly owned and operated system. Don't expect to make a quick buck, and use any profits - which may well take time to materialise - to continue to improve the system.
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Susan Edwards 6 years ago
Privatisation of the railways has been a disaster and only privatisation ideology is keeping this option on the table. Public money is being pumped into the system to prop up the private companies operating the various franchises. Meanwhile the service gets worse and more overcrowded; the ticketing system becomes more complicated, ludicrous and overpriced and the reliability also deteriorates. Please view this from the perspective of producing a coordinated public transport system that will improve people's lives, employment punctuality and be better for the environment. This can most easily, economically and morally be achieved through a nationalised railway system.
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John Telford 6 years ago
Railways should be a national service. National means proper management of the integrated whole. Efficient management should be possible for publicly owed companies as well as privately owned companies or plcs (provided party political dogma doesn't constrain this). Profits back to the public purse means greater investment rather than private enrichment. Simplistic? I think, essentially, it is just simple.
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Caroline Heath 6 years ago
We need our railways to operate effectively and efficiently and have profits re-invested back to improve services and not have profit as the main aim. Privatisatio has proved that services suffer because of a need to make money and keep costs down. Commuters must be sick of the poor service they have to endure daily. The ongoing strikes of the guards are an example of the operators wanting to cut costs, but surely what they propose cannot be conducive to passenger safety.
We need our railways more than ever now, especially to get people out of their cars and off the roads. We need a better transport network of which trains ar a vital part of our infrastructure. We need to address this because of climate change concerns and being fobbed off by inferior services is not going to get people to use the trains more.
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Rhoda Morrow 6 years ago
The current privatisation of our railways does not benefit the people who use the system at all. If privatisation worked it is supposed to lead to competition and those a range of options being available to a consumer. This means prices come down or stabalise. As only one company can manage a line there is not any real reason to hold this as a reason to continue it. There is no market therefore there is no point in it.
As a principle I do not believe privatising benefits the people who use a service as they are most often things that should not be seen as a service, they are usually necessities. People in many communities rely on their public transport, they could not work otherwise. If is unfair to hold these people to ransom because they have no other option. I want my taxes to be invested in a better, fairer, affordable system.
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Ian Rock 6 years ago
The railways are fragmented to the extent that no one takes overall responsibilty, and there are enormous inefficiencies with contrcatual agreements between the various parties. Contrast this with state owned railways (like the old BR) which have a far leaner management structure and hence lower costs.
The UK's part privatised franchised system is now the most expensive in Europe with some of the worst performance figures on train times, quality, punctuality etc. Quite an achievement given that UK Govt now pays around 3 times the money that the old nationalised BR system was allocated! In the late 1980s BR was voted the second most efficient rail system in Europe (after Sweden)and one of the cheapest for commuters. It also designed and manufactured world-leading rolling stock - all now lost.
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Andrew Dimoglou 6 years ago
subsidies from tax payers, payments to shareholders...blatant rip off.Rubbish service and ridiculous high fares.Return the railways to public ownership ASAP.
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Graham Lingley 6 years ago
Public utilities (things we have no choice but to use), should be in public ownership.
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Lizzie Grocott-James 6 years ago
This country needs a publicly run rail system that's fit for purpose - unlike the system we have now. A rail system that's run for profit and not for public service will inevitably mean that many people get a poor service. At present huge swathes of the country have appallingly unreliable rail services with rolling stock that isn't safe and should have been decommissioned decades ago. Meanwhile a new high-speed line is being built (when several alternative routes already exist) and this project is way over budget. A publicly run rail system is what this country needs - run for the people who need it - not just for the people who will be able to make the most money for rail companies.
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Mary McAnally 6 years ago
Privatisation of the railways has not worked for the benefit of the people the railways are supposed to serve. Need I say more!
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Gareth Gee 6 years ago
Is making a profit from the railways really the best way to organise them? 20+ years of experience says 'No, it isn't'. The recent experience of the East Coast main line service shows the way forward: a public sector organisation, at 'arm's length' from the Government, has consistently performed better than any private operator on that franchise, in all the categories that matter: punctuality, customer satisfaction, and (crucially) employee satisfaction, too. We should take each of the franchises back into public ownership as they come up for renewal. This would cost nothing. The services should then be run by Direct Rail Services or a similar public body, for the good of the people, not for shareholders' pockets.
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Andy Lees 6 years ago
Take the shareholders out of the equation. Reverse this network fragmentation and short term thinking and make a publicly owned rail network part of an integrated national transport system
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J H Masterson 6 years ago
It seems that profits and dividends are more important than passengers. Passengers have had a dreadful year of cancellations and delays and now higher fares. Please let's run the railways in the public interest.
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J H Masterson 6 years ago
It seems that profits and dividends are more important than passengers. Passengers have had a dreadful year of cancellations and delays and now higher fares. Please let's run the railways in the public interest.
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Patricia Thompson 6 years ago
Privatised railways in the UK have failed, totally inefficient, costly, fare prices up every year. The trains are often cancelled or late and not enough information why it happens. I remember British Rail were cheap and reliable and as under public ownership were not paying outrageous sums of money to shareholders.
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Rosemary Walsom 6 years ago
Evidence based decisions will mean that railways are brought back into public ownership.
The evidence is clear...privatised rail costs us the taxpayers and citizens of UK money which has not gone into improving rail services but in keeping some failing companies afloat.
Where there have been examples of the state taking over to bail out privatised sections of the rail network it has been more successful on criteria used to evaluate rail performance.
Hence my belief that if this review is to be based upon evidence the railways will be brought back into public ownership and control.
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David Banks 6 years ago
Privatisation seems designed to keep people off the Railways We either cannot afford to travel, trains are always cancelled, or there are permanent Saturday strikes.
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Steve Ehrlicher 6 years ago
A not-for-profit arrangement for the railways would allow for a compromise between public ownership (as opposed to private ownership) and a business-like approach to running the railways. They should be subsumed into this new organisation as the franchises come up for renewal. It is quite clear that the railway mantra of 'the fares are going up so that we can invest in a much-improved service',trotted out every year in December or January, is so much hot air. Complaints about the service only increase, year on year, as a percentage of passengers.
As was shown by the reclaimation of the East Coast line into public control, surplus income was achieved and the line ran at no cost to the country.
Ideology is no way to run a country - take the party out of politics and get real debate and real action for the population as a whole.
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Sarah Pethybridge 6 years ago
Please can we have public ownership of railways restored to us the public who owned them in the first place ! Then we can at least work towards a better service with profits being ploughed back in where needed not leached away by dividends to shareholders and fat pay for fat cat directors.
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Julia Wands 6 years ago
Railways are a public service and need to be publicly owned. Railways need substantial investment and only public ownership provides the longterm perspective necessary for this.
It does not make sense to spend, as we currently do, more on subsidising private companies to run them that it would to support a publicly-owned railway.I am happy to support a reliable, affordable public transport system from my taxes, but I object very much to my taxes going into shareholders' pockets as dividend!
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Simon Bradley 6 years ago
The experience of the East Coast Main Line shows that there's no barrier to the successful, economical and efficient operation of franchised passenger services by public companies. The record of many private franchises has by contrast been disappointing, or worse. So the best way forward is to allow failing franchises to pass into public hands, following the example of Network Rail itself.
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Christopher Shevlin 6 years ago
Our railways are insane. Ticket prices are absurdly high and also apparently randomly determined. It's always cheaper for me to rent a car than to take a train between UK cities. I wouldn't mind rail being privatised if it worked, but since it doesn't, the fact that it's also unnecessarily enriching all these separate sets of managers and shareholders is insulting. And the system for buying a ticket is fragmented and frustrating. The whole situation is a national embarrassment. When I go elsewhere in Europe, the state-owned services work well and have manageable, rational prices. And when European friends come here, I can never explain why our railways are so expensive and bad, except by saying that we're a nation of idiots.
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Helen Coyne 6 years ago
Since private companies took over the running of the British Rail Network, the interests of shareholders has taken precedence over passengers. Network Rail are not able to maintain the infrastructure. East Coast is my most used line and whenever its been taken back into public ownership its been more efficient, and profitable. We must continue improving our railways as an efficient, comfortable alternative to our overcrowded roads with their pollution. Governments should be enabling rail use to increase and car use to decrease and generally be looking at ecological benefits as well
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Mark Smith 6 years ago
I have worked in the railway industry for 30+ years, experiencing both the private sector and public sector variously on a number of occasions. I am committed to my job and the railway and I firmly believe in a successful railway as an essential, fundamental necessity of a first world state. I am not weighed down by ideological baggage on either side of the argument, I simply speak from experience. The cost control mechanisms in the privatised railway are gossamer thin to non existent and wholly lacking in rigorous auditing, and in my experience there is a who cares, fly by night, bodge it and scarper attitude amongst contractors which leads to over spending and over running. Hard working tax payers money is going down the drain, and along with it the notion of an integrated railway service for the nation. And integration is the key word: A successful first world railway service can surely only be run by one over arching body, which in reality can only the state, for the state, with seasoned railway professionals enacting the day to day strategy and implementation of such.
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Helen McComb 6 years ago
I am ashamed of the shambles of our railways. Overseas visitors wishing to travel independently cannot believe the time and effort involved in finding the best price even for simple journeys, and the high price of even the lowest. My sister-in-law has lupus. Because she had not understood her booking and the train was so overcrowded, she travelled for over 50 miles on a midweek journey without a seat. How has this come to be normal in our very wealthy country?
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E Hall 6 years ago
Privatisation being more efficient is a myth. If market forces were applied, these so-called private operators would go under. Instead they are bailed out using public funds that are much needed elsewhere to prevent public services from being under-resourced. We need to reclaim our railways and have the efficient service that the travelling public deserve.
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Margaret Anderson 6 years ago
The railways should be handed back into public ownership. As it is now it is the shareholders who are creaming of vast amounts of taxpayers monies. The fares are rising so rapidly to fund the trains , so the passengers are hit continually. The service is dire! Throwing money at the problem is not helping... they want more @ more. Stop the lunacy now, put it back where it belongs , public ownership!
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Andrew Fisher 6 years ago
I am in my 60s and I have been a regular train traveller all my life but I have never seen our railways in such chaos. Since privatisation the railways are being run entirely for the benefit of the Train Operating Companies and the passenger is just expected to pay up and be grateful. Every year we are told that the fares must increase while the service gets worse. We are constantly being told that improvements are coming but they never seem to arrive.It seems to me that privatisation has failed completely and the only way in which we can improve the railways for the passengers they are meant to serve is to renationalise. Our railways are a national asset and something that we should be proud of. They should, first and foremost, provide a service to the public and not just provide profits for shareholders.
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Anji King 6 years ago
The railways are a public service, and should be owned/run as such. It just doesn't make sense for them to be privately owned/run for profit. The service and the passengers suffer. There is no room for competition. Bring back British Rail!
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John Astill 6 years ago
We had a family trip to Chester (out of season) we left the cars at home (3) and went by train (thinking green), we hadn’t done this since British Rail. We spent the last day in Liverpool and left from Lime Street (best chance of a seat) I have spinal problems but was well medicated. I didn’t think for a moment I would spend over 3 hours standing up, the last hour I was held up by my wife and son in law as the standing room thinned slightly being fewer people to hold me upright and I was in so much pain I wasn’t aware come journey’s end and my wife and son-in-law had to help me off the train. I would strongly recommend anyone who has the slightest spinal or leg disability to stay well clear of today's rail system, British Rail would have won hands down.
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Ian Hay 6 years ago
I regularly travel on train services run by SWR, GWR and LNER.
The staff didn't change on the East Coast mainline service on the 2 occasions when it's been publicly run (first as East Coast when NXEC defaulted on the franchise they "won" after GNER's contract was terminated, now as LNER after VTEC's contract was terminated), but the journey has always been more pleasant experience when it was.
I've also found it very telling that when there are delays I've never heard a Delay Repay announcement from the train crew on privately run services but they always make one on publicly run services.
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A Passenger 6 years ago
The railways have seen a rise in passenger numbers because the population has grown -not because they are in private hands yet the rail franchises have written into them a desire by C Grayling to reduce the guards?? on longer trains carrying more people. Really! The East Coast Line shows that public rail does work and a monopoly shouldn't be a cash cow for owners.. its unethical apart from being illogical.
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Jason Noble 6 years ago
The privatisation model has failed spectacularly! Where are the benefits to the passengers that we were promised privatisation would bring? It has been more than 25 years since the Railways Act 1993 and therefore this failed privatisation experiment has reached the end of the line. It is time to bring the railways back into public ownership.
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Michael J Spurden 6 years ago
Before rail privatisation I enjoyed rail travel and was able to afford it. In the 1980s and early 1990s my Wife and I would a have days out by rail, sometimes several times a week. Now, due to universal overcrowding, rail travel is no longer enjoyable nor is it affordable, even with a Disabled Person's Railcard. Privatisation has not worked...it never will.
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Jack Glanville 6 years ago
Privatisation has clearly failed the people of this country (Unless of course you happen to be a shareholder of the franchisees). What free market ideologues do not understand or wish to understand is that there are services that Must be publicly owned as they are essential to the well-being of the people and the effective running of these services. This includes the Railways, The Utilities, Telecommunications, Health and Social Care, Education to name only the main ones. Many of these services were nationalised by the Attlee government following WW2. From 1945 until 1979 despite the fact that the Conservative party was in government for much of this period, they never challenged the principle of nationalisation of these essential PUBLIC services. The claims from the right wing free marketeers that private is cost efficient and effective than public have clearly been shown to be false. The constant flow of news stories of catastrophic failures and corruption in these privatised public services proves this. Some of the best railways systems in the world are publicly owned and managed. The UK must re-nationalise the Railways as a first step to returning public services to public ownership.
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John Smith-Warren 6 years ago
I joined the (local) Railway as a Guard after leaving my job as an Insurance Claims Assessor in 1998 with the intention of retiring after two years service at age 50. In the end I stayed for over 17 years as I enjoyed the job so much.
I never worked under British Rail and all my experience was in the highly fragmented private rail industry.
The one thing that became increasingly obvious was that the only way a Railway can work - especially for its passengers - properly is under one controlling management.
The Railway is rather like a very large clockwork machine in which each part interacts with the part adjacent to it and is affected by them.
It is important that the pieces work together and support each other as any failure of one part has a negative effect on its neighbours to such an extent that each company has a department whose total purpose is to claim (or decline) monies due because of running issues of any other (or their own) companies.
This, more than any other, is the reason a fragmented railway does not and cannot work.
As a Guard I experienced situations in which different companies were not prepared to work with each other just because they might have to pay a fine for running a delayed service even if it meant passengers on their service being unable to make the connection necessary at the station.
The result of this is another large department within the companies in place to pay compensation and handle passenger complaints caused purely by the inability of the different companies having absolutely no interest in working together.
This has another consequence that has a negative effect on the cost of train travel - as each separate company has no interest in working with another company due to the financial penalties imposed on it.
Each company has to have its own:
1. Customer Service/ Complaints Department
2. Delay Attribution Department
3. Service Control/Delivery Department
4. Staff Rostering Department
5. Staff Management Teams/ Department
6. Train Maintenance Depot and Staff
7. Senior Management Teams and Directors.
This list is not exhaustive but serves to show the (expensive) duplication of roles and departments...
As an example of the above, Northern Spirit operated the local and (local) express train services in the North of England but a decision was made to form a new company, First Transpennine Express (TPX) to operate the express trains which overnight introduced conflict to the trains.
Before TPX was formed, if a Driver or Guard was required for an express service (due to illness of a member of staff) Northern Spirit was able to provide an experienced replacement from a local service to enable the service to run. One of the newer, less experienced members of staff was then used to work on the local service from the small pool of “spare” traincrew they hold to cover contingencies. As all safety critical traincrew have to fully learn a route before they can work a service over it there should always be a small pool of relatively inexperienced staff available that can be taken off Route Learning to be used.
When TPX was formed there were many requests to Northern Spirit to provide traincrew but these requests were refused and the express services cancelled.
The reason?
NS had no interest in TPX services and TPX were not prepared to pay for a NS Driver or Guard but instead preferred to pay the fine levied for the cancellation.
This example of non cooperation between the different companies is now embedded in the privatised Railway - but mainly and especially at senior management level and above. In fact, there were and still are regular examples of new staff at the mainline train operators being advised to not interact with the staff at local operators.
As many of these main line operators recruit from local train operators I believe this is yet another example of the non cooperation between different operators across the Network and another reason why the whole Rail Industry needs to be run under one overarching company.
And the best placed “company” to operate the Railway is the government.
It is irrelevant what this is called but there is no reason why it should regain the mantle, British Rail as this best describes its operations.
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Jacqie Levin 6 years ago
Privatisation of the railways has now been shown again not to work. It didn't work originally and that was why it was privatised. There cannot be a 'market' in railways. How can there be competition. We need rail to be part of joined up thinking in this country to get people, cars and lorries off the roads in order to mitigate the impact of climate change. We cannot wait. Make rail efficient and affordable not profitable.
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Martin Davis 6 years ago
Back in the 1990's a German friend said to me that the German government had been looking very closely at our rail privatisation "to see how not to do it"...and some think that Germans have no sense of humour....How true this still is. Allowing state owned companies to raise capital on the 'money markets' is one thing..the utter absurdity of pseudo competition and separation of control of trains and track quite another.
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Jamie Johnson 6 years ago
I think that an effective train service which meets the needs of society as a whole can only be achieved when it is operated on a nationally managed and fully accountable "not-for-profit" basis...
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Margaret Green 6 years ago
None of the privatised public services deliver good value for money. Railways do not deliver competition, merely bad services and poor value for our taxes. Nationalsie the railways (and all other public services).
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